Here it is, after more than a month, we have something new to test!
http://depositfiles.com/files/r1m81qbae
To install:
1. Make sure you have a CLEAN copy of RTW 1.5 with BI 1.6
2. Extract the archive to your desktop.
3. Copy/paste the data folder to your CLEAN RTW directory.
4. Overwrite ALL files
5. Go to data/world/maps/base and delete the map.rwm and map_heights.hgt files
6. Create a shortcut for BI and add this in the target line: -show_err -nm -mod
7. TEST!
Here is everything that is included:
;;;;0.1;;;;
-Player1's Bug Fixer v3.36
-Hader's All Factions Mod
-Sinuhet's AI Formations 7.0
-Dol Goldur's No Boiling Oil
-Three New battering Rams
-Wlesmana's Projectiles sticking in Ground Mod
-Diadochi Total War's Grass and Sky
-BI Night Battles
-BI Shieldwall
-Resef's Combined Animations
-Force Diplomacy by DimeBagHo
-Marcus Camillus' Player Formations
SPQR Fort Mod by Lt1956
;;;;;;;0.2;;;;;;
-98% of units reskinned
-Webbird skins implemented
-Warspite skins implemented
-Ferres Modding Legion Pack v1.3 implemented
;;;;;;;0.3;;;;;;
-DMB fixes so a few units do not look vanilla
-RS2 Environments
-New banners and symbols for most factions (Brutii, Senate, Scipii still look very vanilla)
-Generals and Captains have new textures on strat map. Credits to webbird, warspite, and Prometheus
-New textures for the campaign map. Credits go to limes of AEE and RS2. Trees are from M2TW
-New settlement models for campaign map thanks to RTR VII
-New menu backdrop, and loading screens. I edited the loading screens, Menu is credited to RTR.
-New Loading bar from RTR
;;;;;;;;0.3.5;;;;;;;;;
-New Seleucid Legionary courtesy of spirit_of_rob
-DTW Walls Implemented
;;;;;;;0.4;;;;;;;;;;
-RTH 1.2 Map with vanilla set up implemented courtesy of Philadelphos
;;;;;0.5;;;;;
-Pinarius Horses
-Got rid of Resefs Animations since they were buggy. Added a unified animation pack that consists of EB's, RG's and Signifier One's Animations
-Added Unit Cards to 95% of the Units thanks to BERCOR!. Chariot units and a few rebel units still maintain vanilla unit cards.
-Added RS2 Settlement Trees, really makes a difference!
-Added Sleepysmoo's and Florin80's Wall mod - Makes Large Stone Walls look like Stone Walls, since AI was buggy with them.
-Got rid of Epic Stone Walls
-Fixed Siege Engines so that they are compatible with all walls
-Added phalanx_man's Realistic EDU. Battles are a lot longer and more realistic than ever!
-Added BI interface for Barbarian Factions
-Each culture has a unique set of Advisors now
-Edited descr_strat so that all factions begin with a larger more experienced army. Also made Numidia and Parthia a bit stronger, gave Olbia to Scythia, Pessinus to the Seleucids, and took away two settlements from the Germans.
-A few EDU and DMB edits, all cavalry units hold their reins now.
-Added a Naval Mini Mod made by Iskandar for ExRM. Sea battles should now have better outcomes and not be so impossible to win as well as being less frequent.
-Renamed a few settlements to reflect the 280 BC timeframe
-Hoplites now fight in a phalanx formation with overhead animation. They operate best when in a line, just like they did historically.
-Added new custom locations to custom and historical battle sites
To use Force Diplomacy:
QuoteIn order to use the force diplomacy script, you must first hit ESC, then game options, then click the "Reset Advisor" button, then click the checkmark to close the scroll!
Then have one of your diplomats engage the AI, you must then click on the"?"
button, the advisor will apear, with text that reads "You can force this faction to accept your offer by clicking on the "show me how" button." If it says something about victory conditions, YOU HAVE DONE IT WRONG! START OVER!
Click on the "Show me how button",
propose whatever you want, the AI will now accept it, as long as it has it! The AI will not give you things it doesn't have(Like money).
This will only work one time per use, if you wish to force the AI again, you must start the process over!
Testing:
Basically test everything from above, make sure everything runs smoothly, look out for bugs, and give solid reports. EVERYONE TAKE A FEW SCREENSHOTS! Both of the campaign and battle maps. These will be used for previews and promoting the mod once we release on TWC.
Barring any major issues, we are set to release on WEDNESDAY FEB 19th! So get your testing in ASAP, no messing around boys!
Sign up for your factions!
BETA Testing Sign Up:ahowl11 - Everything
Bercor - Armenia, Macedon
b257 - Scipii, Brutii, Carthage
Mausolos of Caria - Greeks
Sigma - Spain, Egypt
Feanaro -
Ciciro -
cyprian2 -
jubal -
comrade_general -
thecheese -
Caligen -
Zephyronian -
Cozmicus -
xsithspawnx - Pontus, Thrace
Mirionis9 -
Alavaria -
Principe Alessandro -
Vrosivs Avgvstvs Ravkvs -
phalanx_man -
TheMilo -
Aquila - Gauls
YourStepDad - Julii
Skitoritto - Scythia
Ravagers Prey - Parthia
Happy testing!
To all beta testers, when you're in the middle of your campaign (like 20 turns or even more in) please put a screenshot of your Financial tab in the Economy thread.
It would also be great if you can tell me how many armies (ie: full stacks or equivalent) you and the AI are using, specifically do you feel like you have more armies than you need, and does the AI seem to have a lot or is it just weakly flailing about a bit...
Just did a quick three turns and let me just say I love what I am seeing right now. One bug I found though as playing as the Brutii. When I was attacking a town, I forgot its name but it was Illyrian, their Skirmishers did not fire on my ram, and when I ordered my velites to engage they did not fire until they were in their face, I mean I know Javelin units don't throw that far in real life but I doubt they got that close. I tried a custom battle and archers work fine but Javelins didn't fire until the enemy got real close, I dunno if others will have the same problem but I think javelin range should be adjusted somewhat.
It's something that I'll have to ask phalanx_man about.
Since it looks like it's not taken yet I'll grab Pontus. If I get through this in good time and there's more open I'll gladly pick up more, but I'll start with just the one faction for now.
Sounds good!
Ok, I did the twenty turns for the Bruttii and let me just say, the battles are longer and barring some hiccups like the Javelins, much more enjoyable. No game crashes and one bug I did notice one graphical glitch in a greek settlement I was attacking, I forgot if it was appolonia or ambracia:
Spoiler
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k306/deus257/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1412-41-13-84_zps25ed680e.png) (http://s91.photobucket.com/user/deus257/media/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1412-41-13-84_zps25ed680e.png.html)
As for finances, as requested I have posted all financial information from turn 20:
Spoiler
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k306/deus257/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1413-06-09-35_zpsf195bdc5.png) (http://s91.photobucket.com/user/deus257/media/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1413-06-09-35_zpsf195bdc5.png.html)
Financially I was pretty Darn Spiffy, then again I do tend to use low tier units like Hastati and Auxilia a lot which doesn't hurt me in the pocket :P
Hmm that is weird looking. I'm not too worried about it though haha. I'm taking a break from actual modding until 0.5 has been tested well and released for a bit.
How to take a screen shot in game? Last time I tried to hit print screen of this game, then ctrl + v later in some program like paint, all I got was a capture of my desktop -_-
Try turning anti-aliasing off. Also, you may try using a free screen capture program like fraps. That's how I take my screenshots.
Cool, ahowl.
I've been looking forward to this.
Downloading, finally.
PS. Can I just overwrite the files of the 0.4 version?
A quick update. I'm around 30 turns into my Pontus campaign (H/H difficulty) and I'll put up a detailed post of the status as of turn 20 or so when I have time (hopefully tomorrow). I have to say that Pontus really doesn't have access to much in the way of decent troops early on. I'm really having to be careful with the few pike units I started with, especially considering that the Seleucids have tons of large stacks roaming around. Fortunately, the Seleucids have only sent small armies directly at me that I've been able to pick off piecemeal, however, they have at least 3 full stacks in western Asia Minor so I'm racing to get some decent recruiting buildings up before they finish there and turn their attention fully to me. My cities all start pretty small so I started lowering taxes in order to boost my cities to a large enough size to be able to get the recruitment buildings I need. Anyways, it's been pretty fun so far. I'll post pics and more details soon.
@Cyprian, yeah you can.
@sithspawn, Pontus needs to be a harder faction since they were not very important until later. Historically, Pontus was just established as a Kingdom when the game starts.
Are the Greek Cities available? I'd try them, but I can't promise when, since I have an exam on Tuesday and need to start my paper for uni next week as well, but I think I can do it somewhere in between next week.
@xsithspawnx Lord Vader, is that you? ;)
Yeah go for it! :)
Playing as Julii, here is their financial situation after 20 turns. Far too easy.
(http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj148/ahowl11/0009_zps79da81d2.jpg)
Damn, its going to be a good day for the other factions when the romans are finally merged.
I agree. I get the feeling that the Roman factions are somewhat hard coded to dominate the game.
You, know, I don't think I'm going to even post screens of my Scipii campaign, it's pretty much like my Brutii campaign especially since they are going to be merged anyways:
Turn:20
Bank: 43,187
I pretty much conquered Syracuse and a few settlements in northwest africa. Rebel Navy attacks are still frequent though. Didn't run into any bugs. I'm looking forward to carthage, when I played them last I was rolling in cash :)
The problem lies also in the ridiculous easy vanilla economy.
Quote from: Bercor on February 16, 2014, 07:41:54 PM
The problem lies also in the ridiculous easy vanilla economy.
Very True, but it will be fixed, that is for certain.
Edit:
My results from Carthage:
1. Rebel Navies need to be weakened, You do not know how many times my fleets got wiped out by the rebels. I lost Sicily because of those damn rebels!!! I had an army of 5 Liby Poeni infantry, 4 long shields, 4 skirmishers and 2 war elephants on fleet headed towards sicily to relieve one of my towns under siege by the brutii and it got sunk by a rebel navy and I lost my faction leader because the reinforcements never made it. To make matter worse, when I saw the island was lost, I evacuated the troops from my two remaining settlements and you know what happened, rebel fleet sunk the boats they were in, and I had the advantage!
2. Carthage is wealthy, which offset the losses I sustained from sicily here is the screenshot of their financial status at turn 20:
Spoiler
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k306/deus257/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1613-10-23-89_zps0717e33c.png) (http://s91.photobucket.com/user/deus257/media/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1613-10-23-89_zps0717e33c.png.html)
Other than that no bugs, so far so good, though rebel fleets need balancing
I'll test Armenia and Macedon, if nobody wants them...
Go for it
(http://gyazo.com/dec0d533d379f93dfba1cf32cc6e543a.png)
I found this strange glitch in the hoplites animation. As you can see, when they're fighting in a hill, they attack by pointing their dory towards the sky...
It's a bug that comes with the formation. I'm not sure if it can be fixed
Another one, now with the pikeman:
(http://gyazo.com/22573fcb6cc65847b71ebc2f86c11bba.png)
They should be in phalanx position, but are holding the sarissa with only one hand...
Are they like this every time?
Quote from: ahowl11 on February 18, 2014, 01:28:52 AM
Are they like this every time?
I don't think so, I only noticed in this battle.
Okay because I haven't noticed it
Playing a new carthage campaign today I noticed something odd, Egypt had declared war on Armenia, I ignored it at first thinking it was nothing but every few turns it popped up and I didn't think Egypt had expanded so quickly, so When I toggled fog of war I saw that Armenia had a settlement in southwest Arabia. Is this a bug? because Armenia had pretty good sized garrison in the settlement but was getting thrashed by the seleucids who were pretty much duking it out with the egyptians.
Hmmm, something tells me that Egypt conquered a settlement down there but it revolted to Armenia, because they are labeled as the 'faction_creator' of the settlement in the descr_strat.
My Carthage Campaign continues:
Romans attack the isle of Palma, Beginning of what should be a bloody and Violent conflict:
Spoiler
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k306/deus257/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1813-23-23-24_zps56439894.png) (http://s91.photobucket.com/user/deus257/media/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1813-23-23-24_zps56439894.png.html)
Who Knew I had a port there :P
I invest Sicily and my first army was mauled in the re-taking my original city and I sent another force to capture Agrigentum which had a token force of 161, one principe and one hastati. Surely my mighty force of 1208 men would capture this settlement easily:
Spoiler
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k306/deus257/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1813-24-40-75_zpsc4aa1145.png) (http://s91.photobucket.com/user/deus257/media/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1813-24-40-75_zpsc4aa1145.png.html)
Auto-Resolve is not my friend this day :(
I'm also having a lot of problems with squalor and unrest, I have a lot of sanitation buildings but my squalor is still high. and for some reason unrest is really an issue, especially in tingis, I even moved my capital to cirta but I still have a lot of unrest.
Quote from: b257 on February 18, 2014, 10:08:46 PM
My Carthage Campaign continues:
Romans attack the isle of Palma, Beginning of what should be a bloody and Violent conflict:
Spoiler
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k306/deus257/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1813-23-23-24_zps56439894.png) (http://s91.photobucket.com/user/deus257/media/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1813-23-23-24_zps56439894.png.html)
Who Knew I had a port there :P
I invest Sicily and my first army was mauled in the re-taking my original city and I sent another force to capture Agrigentum which had a token force of 161, one principe and one hastati. Surely my mighty force of 1208 men would capture this settlement easily:
Spoiler
(http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k306/deus257/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1813-24-40-75_zpsc4aa1145.png) (http://s91.photobucket.com/user/deus257/media/RomeTW-BI2014-02-1813-24-40-75_zpsc4aa1145.png.html)
Auto-Resolve is not my friend this day :(
I'm also having a lot of problems with squalor and unrest, I have a lot of sanitation buildings but my squalor is still high. and for some reason unrest is really an issue, especially in tingis, I even moved my capital to cirta but I still have a lot of unrest.
Sweet unit cards...
Well, there's definetely a glitch in the phalangites animation:
(http://gyazo.com/615364f85306f2e3693e85e2a94ee73c.png)
It seems that happens when the unit is under fire and, to counter I guess, they brace themselves in this strange way.
Hmm, I'll have a look.
You also might want to have a look at the principes and triarii. I fought a battle against the Scipii with an army of 4 upgraded Libyan Spears, 2 Veteran Slingers and 4 upgraded Long Shields against an army of 5 Hastati 2 principes, 1 trrarii, 1 archer and 1 cav plus a general. I swept aside the Hastati with some effort but those damn principes and triarii fought to the last man, My army of 948 was whittled down to 462 against just those three units :(
Here's my financial situation in my campaign with Armenia, 20 turns into the game:
Spoiler
(http://gyazo.com/288d178a7916597bcd096e07cfed8e39.png)
Spoiler
(http://gyazo.com/95a8ed853d6e9936c33cba5763227927.png)
Spoiler
(http://gyazo.com/0d566bb97fb565dfedb54a469938451a.png)
As you can see, nothing fancy, though it can be partly justified by the ruthless war that I'm waging against those damn Seleucids.
So here's my actual update on my pontus campaign. Sorry it took a bit. I had my pictures all ready to upload and found out that imageshack now requires a paid subscription to upload so I've had to change image hosting sites. I've got a few pictures to go with my previous post. To summarize, as of about turn 20 things are going fairly well. I'm basically working with the troops I started with, supplemented with a few mercenaries and a couple spare units of eastern spearmen to act as cannon fodder. I'm managing to hold my position right now mainly because the Seleucids have only sent small armies at me while most of their forces are focused in western Anatolia. My economy in this picture appears fairly weak, but it picked up a bit shortly after these pictures were taken thanks to a couple of economic buildings being completed and more importantly Galatia being added to my territory (a valuable, but unfortunately somewhat indefensible addition that proved rather problematic to hold on to due to certain factors that I'll detail in a later post).
Army Composition and General Position
Spoiler
(http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/w569/xsithspawnx/RTR%20Beta%20Pontus%20Campaign/Position_zps6db30f92.png) (http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/xsithspawnx/media/RTR%20Beta%20Pontus%20Campaign/Position_zps6db30f92.png.html)
Stats Timeline (overall, financial, military, etc.) of me and my direct neighbors
Spoiler
(http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/w569/xsithspawnx/RTR%20Beta%20Pontus%20Campaign/RTRPontusTurn20Stats_zpsc760c7cf.jpg) (http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/xsithspawnx/media/RTR%20Beta%20Pontus%20Campaign/RTRPontusTurn20Stats_zpsc760c7cf.jpg.html)
Overview (Faction screen, Financial, Diplomacy)
Spoiler
(http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/w569/xsithspawnx/RTR%20Beta%20Pontus%20Campaign/Overviewsturn20_zpsa617d592.jpg) (http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/xsithspawnx/media/RTR%20Beta%20Pontus%20Campaign/Overviewsturn20_zpsa617d592.jpg.html)
Map
Spoiler
(http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/w569/xsithspawnx/RTR%20Beta%20Pontus%20Campaign/Mapturn20_zpsfd1f0d2e.jpg) (http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/xsithspawnx/media/RTR%20Beta%20Pontus%20Campaign/Mapturn20_zpsfd1f0d2e.jpg.html)
I'm a good bit farther in the campaign now (probably around turn 50) and things have gotten much more interesting (i.e. being attacked on all fronts every turn and barely managing not to hemorrhage territory for the time being). I'll go ahead and get a post another detailed update here shortly as my weekend basically starts tomorrow. Hope this helps.
Good reports!
Found another bug:
Spoiler
(http://gyazo.com/2a36df23ae05e4c447334329840b4dad.png)
The port strat map model of Armavir is glitched and the ships just get stuck in the river.
Well, I finished my Armenia campaign... with a defeat.
Spoiler
(http://gyazo.com/65449cebf98865af4e95b77bd870e2a5.png)
Those evils Seleucids and their innumerable hoplite stacks brought me to an ill deserved fate (I shouldn't have attacked them :'(). One of the reasons that led to this was the fact that the Ptolemies and the Seleucids were allies, which they seem to be in every game (not very historical), and, as such, the latters could concentrate all their mighty militar power in fighting me. With an economically weak Armenia it was only matter of time till I was put to shame.
Here are some screens of my last battle:
Spoiler
The Seleucids attacked my capital, defended only by an weakened garrison, with a respectable stack (ELEPHANTS)(http://www.twcenter.net/forums/images/smilies/emoticons/wavecry.gif)
(http://gyazo.com/b10bdf60623355b4c15f9035d429f299.png)
Spoiler
The battle was almost won due to the fact that I was able to scare off the elephants, but those sturdy gold chevron hoplites held their ground, and, soon, the routed troops came back to battle. An inglorious end indeed.(http://gyazo.com/204aaade2601f1150aef9680b1b47e6f.png)
(http://gyazo.com/109a64409c94e6f4e31da54788ba8089.png)
(http://gyazo.com/4767baeef36b6a943a5092261e116568.png)
Granted I was not trying my best to win the campaign, but it's refreshing seeing the AI pull this off.
Macedon campaign, here I go (hopefully with some better results)!
Wow, that is strange that the Seleucids and Egypt will Ally. Looks like we need to do some editing of some sorts after this version
Wuargh. I've just played a few turns with the Greeks. There seems to be a problem with the graphics, the campaign is a tad slow, and battles are terribly slow. Or well, not sure if slow is the right way to describe it, my peltasts were flying over the map like supermen, but I could only move slowly, like it happened on my 10 000 men battle on MTW2. Not sure why, since RTR VII, RS II and Invasio Barbarorum all work smoothly.
On the actual game: The income is quite high (but then again I have many rich cities, so it should be), but there is also a lot to spend with so many cities. Some of them don't have a family member in them (Pantikapaion or Massalia for example) which I think they should since they actually represent different factions (they also need to be renamed since they are all still Spartans at the moment, but I guess you already figured that out=. The new unit models are quite cool.
As Cyprian has reported before, I was also able to bribe an enemy army with only 5000 denarii (6 or 7 Roman units, most of them town watches) which is quite cool (since it rarely ever worked before), but maybe the amount is a bit too low, if you can do anything about it.
As for later possession changes, the Ptolemies should hold Lysimacheia and Macedon should hold Argos.
Quote from: Mausolos of Caria on February 21, 2014, 12:26:29 AM
Wuargh. I've just played a few turns with the Greeks. There seems to be a problem with the graphics, the campaign is a tad slow, and battles are terribly slow. Or well, not sure if slow is the right way to describe it, my peltasts were flying over the map like supermen, but I could only move slowly, like it happened on my 10 000 men battle on MTW2. Not sure why, since RTR VII, RS II and Invasio Barbarorum all work smoothly.
That's strange...
I'll ask my brother about it. If I get it to work better, I'll proceed with the campaign and post some screenshots.
So my Pontus campaign is also complete. The overall feel of my campaign looks to be pretty similar to Bercor's Armenian campaign.
Fair warning, this is going to be a long one. I'll put this all in spoilers so you don't have to scroll past my giant wall of text every time.
Spoiler
Shortly after turn 20 Armenia back-stabbed me and between their armies and the far more numerous Seleucid armies my armies I was forced to take a defensive stance. At this point I had 5 cities (Amasia, Sinope, Mazaka, Trapezus, and Galatia), but due to only being able to afford one army large enough to compete with all the Seleucid full stack armies in the area I was soon forced to abandon Galatia to its fate. Armenia besieged Trapezus, and the Seleucids besieged both Mazaka and Galatia while menacing my capitol as well. I was able to kill the stack near Amasia, and I successfully defended Trapezus and Mazaka. Unfortunately, there were just too many armies to deal with in time to save Galatia. It fell to the Seleucids, and with it my economy was drastically weakened, spoiling any chances of training another army to keep up with the many enemy armies I was faced with.
From about turn 25-40 I was able to manage to hold on to my remaining four cities by the frantic shuffling around of my one field army and more wire thin wins in desperate siege battles. Approximately turn 42 the Seleucids launched a surprise attack on Sinope with a full stack army that included elephants. This allowed them to assault on that same turn, preventing any reinforcements from being sent to the city, and resulting in the city's immediate capitulation. The next few turns saw yet more full stack armies from both Armenia and the Seleucids (still strangely not at war, despite not being allied and both competing for the same territory) attacking all my remaining cities simultaneously. By turn 48 I was left with only my battered field army (funds to retrain had long been unavailable due to my treasury being drained by constant sieges and eventual loss of territory) and my capitol of Amasia. At this point I decided to go ahead and bunker up inside the city's stone walls and take as many Seleucid and Armenian dogs with me as I could. Soon enough, a few Seleucid armies moved in and besieged my capitol, waiting a few turns to weaken my still formidable garrison before attacking.
The Seleucids attacked from 2 directions with plenty of towers, ladders, rams, and even a sapping point that went unnoticed by me for the time. I noticed that one force was significantly smaller than the other, and I realized that trying to hold the walls in two directions at once was not likely to succeed and that camping in the square would simply hand the tactical initiative to the enemy. I decided to place a few units of eastern spearman and all my cavalry at the gate they were set to attack in preparation for a sally that would allow me to make best use of my heavy cavalry advantage.
Before I go any further I should mention that my superiority in cavalry was probably the biggest reason I was able to survive nearly as long as I did. By keeping at least two generals, the battered remnant of the single unit of Pontic Heavy Cav that I started with (which I was never able to retrain due to a lack of funds and time needed to get the second stable building they were recruited in), a unit of barbarian mercenary cav, as well as a unit of Scythed Chariots (that fear effect was a godsend) I was able to cause chain-routes in the enemy forces time and again, even when heavily outnumbered. I also kept 2 units of Pontic Light Cav on hand when possible, but they were primarily just used to chase down routing units and prevent them from coming back. The few units of Pikemen that I started with were also invaluable, and once I was finally able to recruit more of them I expanded my pike core to 5 units that rarely needed retraining and easily killed just about anything they came up against (excluding the one time they actually had to fight enemy pikemen, and even then they only took serious casualties due to being at a serious a terrain disadvantage. I'll talk more about my thoughts on the battle balance in general in a bit. For now though, back to the battle.
I set my pikes up around the gate near the larger enemy force, and kept my other heavy infantry and skirmisher units nearby as support. I didn't bother stationing troops on the walls themselves as my pikes were far more useful in phalanx formation and my other infantry units were either too weak (i.e. eastern spearman and eastern mercenaries) or too depleted to compete with the huge numbers of militia hoplites they would likely be facing on the walls. Having set up both sides I began the battle. I immediately began my sally on the other end, rushing my eastern infantry and cavalry out the moment the battle began. Using basic hammer and anvil tactics I was able to quickly destroy the handful of militia hoplite units and militia cavalry comprising most of the flank force. A few towers did reach the walls, and instead of trying to chase them down I sent my sallying force back to the city square to reinforce my other side if needed, and to deal with the troops that were able to sneak in past my sally when needed.
Back on the other side the Seleucids were easily able to break down my gate, but instead of immediately charging through en-masse they waited while there men climbed their ladders and towers onto the wall. At this point I was somewhat worried that the enemy would go to the outlying towers and flank my pikemen guarding the gate, but they brilliantly moved all their troops on the walls towards the gatehouse and funneled down into my pike wall along with their comrades who began their suicide charge through the gate itself. The rest was simple cleanup duty, chasing down the routing units as the enemy's militia hoplites stood absolutely zero chance of breaking my phalanx via frontal attack. The result was a heroic victory. I clicked to go back to the campaign map and........ of course the game chose this moment to crash.
Anyways, even this victory would have simply delayed the inevitable by a few more turns. The city would fall sooner or later, whether to the next siege or the tenth, it was simply a matter of time. I figured I might as well call the campaign done, seeing as it crashed when my eventual defeat was already guaranteed.
What are my thoughts on the campaign overall? Pontus starts out as a fun but challenging faction. It has decent starting troops, but it has a decently long road to go before any troops of significant quality can be trained or retrained. I was forced to be very economical with the forces I did start with and rely heavily on weak eastern infantry and mercenaries to absorb as many casualties as possible. Economically I started off alright, though in order to maintain a large enough army to defend my small kingdom immediate expansion is a necessity. Unfortunately this created a bit of a vicious cycle. Other factions clearly had armies big enough to take down my starting army, and the only way to compete was to expand. This very expansion however, was the primary reason the Seleucids ended up declaring war on me as I gained a common border with them during my conquest of rebel settlements.
Now playing as Pontus, war with the Seleucids should be seen as inevitable. I expected to fight them and I expected to be at a disadvantage in numbers. I also expected to be able to overcome this disadvantage through superior battlefield tactics and campaign level strategy, and for a while I was right. Had the flawed (to put it as kindly as I can) RTW diplomacy not ended up showing it's ugly face so early I may have been able to establish a stronger position allowing me to whether the Seleucid storm, however it was not meant to be. Shortly after fighting off the first wave of Seleucid attacks, my ally Armenia decided that I was a goner and that they should get a piece of the pie before the Seleucids took it all. A dick move to be sure, but fair enough. This is total war after all. That being said, the Seleucids never so much as glanced in Armenia's direction and focused all their attention on me in the west and Parthia in the far east. Egypt was actually allied with the Seleucids, despite the fact that they were both competing to see who could conquer rebel Arabia first, and had a massive shared border. All in all, the Seleucids are just far too powerful with far too few enemies that can (or will even choose to try) to present any kind of barrier to their total ascendance.
Moving on, I'll give my thoughts on the battles themselves. While the units look awesome, the battles still feel like vanilla RTW battles to me. Units die at hyper speed and quick chain-routes are more or less the rule. In some isolated scenarios I've seen units holding their own in melee combat for more than a few seconds, but the slightest negative morale effect will send entire armies running for their lives in a matter of seconds. Maneuver has very little overall importance. If you can hold an infantry line and get one charge in to an enemies flank than more often than not you've just won the battle. Pikemen are unstoppable from the front, as they should be, and they seem to have much better morale than other infantry (though keep in mind that Pontus does not have any levy pikemen so mine were all second or third tier, thus having much better stats and morale as it is). Cavalry is the absolute king of the battlefield, with heavy cavalry and scythed chariots being particularly devastating. I didn't really get a great feel for archers as I only ever had the unit of them that I started with (similar to my cav situation I was never able to buy the second archery building to retrain them or get more of them), but they did seem to be extremely deadly. I couldn't say for certain if they were too effective as I had limited time using them and didn't face many of them myself. In fact the AI seemed dead set on spamming only a few basic troop types. Most armies I fought were almost entirely eastern spearmen or militia hoplites with a smattering of light cav or skirmishers. It was rare to see an army of any size comprised of less than 90% low quality infantry.
Sorry if this is a bit of an information overload. I know this is an early build and that a lot of this will probably change, but it's good to know what your baseline is. I've got some pictures from around the end of the campaign to supplement this, though all of them are from the campaign map. The battles go by waaaay to quickly for me to stop and take pictures while still trying to win them.
Things looking grim shorty before turn 50
Spoiler
(http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/w569/xsithspawnx/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/LookingGrim_zps98aa47a4.png) (http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/xsithspawnx/media/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/LookingGrim_zps98aa47a4.png.html)
My last stand
Spoiler
(http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/w569/xsithspawnx/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/LastStand_zpsffa297e3.png) (http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/xsithspawnx/media/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/LastStand_zpsffa297e3.png.html)
Overview
Spoiler
(http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/w569/xsithspawnx/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/Overviews_zps4ba7f158.jpg) (http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/xsithspawnx/media/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/Overviews_zps4ba7f158.jpg.html)
Rankings (Me, Seleucids, Armenia, Egypt, Parthia, Greeks)
Spoiler
(http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/w569/xsithspawnx/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/Ranks_zpsf2cfe80b.jpg) (http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/xsithspawnx/media/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/Ranks_zpsf2cfe80b.jpg.html)
Map at turn 50
Spoiler
(http://i1330.photobucket.com/albums/w569/xsithspawnx/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/Map_zps5ded878c.jpg) (http://s1330.photobucket.com/user/xsithspawnx/media/rtr%20beta%20pontus%20turn%2050/Map_zps5ded878c.jpg.html)
A couple last thoughts before I end this. Besides the Seleucids, I noticed that the Thracians were quite powerful. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but Macedon did seem to get slaughtered pretty quckly, so that might need some balancing (though this is based on a single campaign). Also, Germania was completely destroyed shortly before this campaign finally came to an end. It seems that between the Dacians, the Britons, and the Julii they were surrounded by quite a few strong factions (another potential balance issue to keep an eye on).
I also noticed that in bridge battles my troops had an annoying tendancy to ignore the bridge and swim across the river instead, no matter how I tried to click. Even clicking directly on to the bridge they would still chose to take a 2 minute long swim instead of crossing the bridge right in front of them. I'd personally suggest removing the swim ability completely. I never felt like the AI was able to use it against me (in my total RTW experience, not just this mod) and it so time consuming and leaves your troops so drained that it is hardly a useful flanking option for the player.
On the positive side of things I love the map and the new unit skins. The mundus magnus map (at least I'm assuming that's the map being used) with RS2 environments looks fantastic. My final suggestions would be to get battles to last longer (increased morale and defence), and maybe add another faction east of the Seleucids to increase the pressure on them and force them to spread out their attention a bit (if possible some increased internal unrest for them would be nice too). Bactria could fit this role nicely (and I'm not just saying this because they are one of my favorite factions :P).
Overall, this test has been much more enjoyable than the previous version even though my test campaign this time has been far less successful. Sorry again for the giant post. Hopefully this was helpful.
Edit:
As it seems we still need quite a few more factions tested and Pontus is done I'll go ahead and grab Thrace if there are no complaints.
@Mausolos
Hopefully it can be worked out for you.
Yeah the Greeks will need a new family tree in the next version. Hmm, is there any settlements that the Ptolemies shouldn't have? I'll give them Lysimachea but I don't want to make them TOO powerful since they are already steamrolling other factions.
@xsithspawnx
Great report, I'm curious to know what caused that CTD though. Could be a random BI.exe crash.
Yes the Seleucids and Egyptians not going to war surprises me. I probably should not have given the Seleucids the garrisons I did, regardless it will take a lot of work to balance the east.
Thrace definitely should not be that superior.
As for battles, they are a lot better than vanilla but you are right about the morale. I'm thinking fatigue may play a part. I'm not sure. I need a whiz on the mechanics to help me out here haha
I think that for a BETA 0.5 stage that this mod is pretty good. Obviously there is a lot to implement, take out, and edit but I'm liking the results.
I'm lucky to have you all here to work with! The bigger this project gets the more I'll need you all. Thank you for helping me, it takes a lot of weight off my shoulders!
Yeah, it seems the Seleucids are the big player in the mod. If they don't get in war with the Ptolemies, then Pontus, Armenia and Parthia will have a bad time. From your map I take the following conclusions: Thracia and Dacia are pretty damn strong; the roman factions, except partially the Julli, were suprisingly bad at expanding; Carthage did a good job, and so did Gaul; Britain does what I'm was fearing if we give them a settlement in the continent, roflstomp through it.
In regards to the battle mechanics, I think they're well thought out by phalanx man, you can see his post explaining them, but need some adjustements, as such: increase substantially the base morale (the other parameters remain the same), increase slightly the units defence and maybe decrease the attack; increase the missile attack elite of archers and slingers (Cretan Archers, Rhodian Slingers, Balearic Slingers, etc) because right now they're absolutely useless. They have pratically the same stats of the normal missile units and there isn't really any reason for being recruited. Right now, slingers and archers don't cause any almost any causalties in the enemy troops (I did a test with a balearic slinger firing against a early legionary cohort and it killed like 5 men with half it's ammunition), which I kinda like, since in reality they weren't meat killers. However, elite missile units should cause some serious damage to other units. Also, why does the roman archer has 7 of missile attack and his greek counterpart 10? Were they really so different, quality wise, in that time?
Late in my carthage campaign I've noticed something, I am having, problems in regards to happiness. Settlements like Utica, Carthage and others are always in the yellow. Tingis is always rioting every other turn. I have problems with sanitation as it is always high despite my efforts to decrease it with buildings that aid in public health.
Quote from: b257 on February 21, 2014, 03:53:07 PM
Late in my carthage campaign I've noticed something, I am having, problems in regards to happiness. Settlements like Utica, Carthage and others are always in the yellow. Tingis is always rioting every other turn. I have problems with sanitation as it is always high despite my efforts to decrease it with buildings that aid in public health.
Yeah, that's squalor for you. When you let your population number get out of control, namely by setting taxes to low, the squalor rises like mad. The sanitary buildings help but are not enough. The only way to deal with it is good ol' extermination.
That's just an old vanilla issue. Yup we will need to have a look at the EDU and make a few adjustments.
Yeah squalor is one of the main problems to overcome, but other mods have also achieved it. As for your question about archers, Bercor, well the Romans did almost never deploy own archers. Maybe we should just wholly delete them from their roster? Greeks weren't the best archers, too, though, but Cretans were quite good and extremely popular (The Ptolemies, Pergamon, Cyrene, the Seleucids and Macedon all used them regularly). They should definitely be stronger, likewise Rhodian slingers and other skirmisher elites, too.
As for the Thracians, that's another chronological problem of course. The Odrysian kingdom we have in the game right now with those three settlements was destroyed by the rampaging Celts in 279 BC, just one year after our campaign starts. They erected the kingdom of Tylis, which would exist for the better part of the rest of the centuries, and Thracian tribes would migrate northwards, mainly the Triballi retained their own kingdom just North of Tylis. Unfortunately the internet doesn't offer good maps on this >:(
As far as I can see we might take away Lesbos from the Ptolemies, but I can't find out who controlled it.
The Thracian faction is going to be replaced by the Illyriae after the Beta.
Okay, here are my thoughts as the Julii VH/VH after some 20+ turns in the game.
Right off the bat, it feels like Polished/Retextured vanilla, which is a very good thing in my book. I am loving the nice touch you added to the animations, and generally how you retextured the units. Really job well done.
-- GRAND CAMPAIGN --
The economy works in the same way it does in vanilla, from what I can tell. But as the Julii, there is a problem. You start with a solid army of triarii, hastatii and principes, and are surrounded by basically ungarrisoned rebel villages, with just one likewise poorly defended gaulic settlement at the start. This makes for a RAPID expansions at no cost or risk. You can harm and even steamroll the gauls fairly quickly, and you can skyrocket your otherwise fairly balanced economy by virtually stealing defenseless rebel villages everywhere.
it's too easy to send out several weaker armies at the beginning to conquer everywhere, while focusing your main army on killing off the gauls.
This may be me just coming back from EB and RS, but I think the Romans should not have archers until lategame, likewise the triarii and/or principes should be somehow unlocked later, because as it stands right now, Julii start mowing down everything in their path.
If I can remember correctly, in vanilla, there were not nearly enough rebel settlements at the start, most everything in gaul was in control of the gaulic tribes, which made them hold their own quite well. Sure, you would have some success in the beginning, but soon as you started pushing deeper in gaul, you'd have problems bringing over fresh recruits, and you would have to worry about sending them to other fronts. It stimulated limited manpower in gaul flawlessly.
Right now, I think I am the strongest faction, and I am just about to wipe out the gauls. This is problematic.
--- BATTLES ---
Now, I would say the battles are a bit problematic. Although I adore longer battles, such as they are in Roma Surrectum, here I feel they are somewhat unnatural. Fully surrounded units of 20 men and even below hold their ground when the battle is clearly over.
Likewise, skirmishers have problem with skirmishing, they tend to dive into melee by accident several times, often getting hopelessly mowed down in the process. Only after pulling them away from harms way AFTER some other melee unit of yours has engaged the enemy in melee do they stop to shower the enemy with javelins, regardless of whether skirmishing is on or off I think.
That would be it for now. Enjoyable, promising, pretty, but it needs work and balancing still. :)
Good report, StepDad and I'm happy to see that you support my point of taking the archers away from Rome ;)
@Bercor Ah yes, true. Could you repeat which factions are brought in for the redundant Roman families? The Gauls should get the Thracian regions then, while the Ptolemies would get Lysimacheia.
Here it is:
http://www.exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2853.0
Lazy boy.
Ah yes, I had forgotten about that, thanks. We need to discuss the distribution of the different Greeks to Rebels, Greek Cities and Greek states later on since it seems a bit random :P
Quote from: Mausolos of Caria on February 21, 2014, 10:19:04 PM
Ah yes, I had forgotten about that, thanks. We need to discuss the distribution of the different Greeks to Rebels, Greek Cities and Greek states later on since it seems a bit random :P
Start a new thread then. There's a first time for everything.
I guess we can still use the old thread you linked for that.
Tried another battle on my Greek campaign, this time everything worked well. Battle mechanics were very much like vanilla, but there weren't any big problems. On the map I think we still have too many rebel towns, but that is going to change anyway.
Good reports, basically I am getting the same message and that is that we need to balance a lot of things out.
Hey Guys,
Sorry I wasnt available to answer some questions regarding combat -I just took a new job and am in the middle of moving (frm Mexico to Michigan). I am scrolling down and will sequentially answer all the combat-related questions as I catch up.
First, from B257,
Quote from: b257 on February 13, 2014, 07:45:40 PM
Just did a quick three turns and let me just say I love what I am seeing right now. One bug I found though as playing as the Brutii. When I was attacking a town, I forgot its name but it was Illyrian, their Skirmishers did not fire on my ram, and when I ordered my velites to engage they did not fire until they were in their face, I mean I know Javelin units don't throw that far in real life but I doubt they got that close. I tried a custom battle and archers work fine but Javelins didn't fire until the enemy got real close, I dunno if others will have the same problem but I think javelin range should be adjusted somewhat.
Hello B257,
Thanks for the positive feedback (further on down) - I really tried to bas our in-game battles as close as possible to actual ancient battles and used historical extimates of battle duration to benchmark how long they should take in game.
The reason for the javelineers not firing at a distance from where they used to in Vanilla is because I also did research on modern experiments on ancient missile weapon ranges (I just googled and also used wikipedia) and then I changed all the ranges accordingly. The javelins I dont remember changing very much (I dont have my vanilla files on my laptop, so I can see if I decreased it slightly or actually INCREASED it slightly) but see below. The pilum troops, however, have about half the range of vanilla (hastati, principes and all legionnaire-types). This reflects the fact that the pilum is much heavier (in fact it had a lead ball slightly larger than a mans fist about 12 inches from the barbed end). This increased mass (coupled with the pointed barb) is what makes it armor piercing (and shield piercing) and greatly increases the damage it dows BUT it also significantly reduces its range. Of course, since the Roman combat infantry (ie. non-skirmishers) didnt have to actually skirmish, it didnt matter that they had to get closer to the enemy since they would be closing to hand-to-hand combat right after they threw their pila.
Also, with missiles, I have noticed that the game is actually good at accounting for trajectory and any obstacles that are in between. For example, missiles troops will not fire if they are too close to a wall if the trajectory will put (I think) more than 50% of the missiles into the wall itself. As per above, I may have actually slighly increased the range of javelins (based on modern experiments) so having them too close to the wall means they will not throw. Try moving them back a little bit OR, shift them sideways (instead of having them right in front across the wall), since when you do that, their trajectory becomes longer and can then clear the wall and still hit the mass of troops targetted.
I have done the same thing and, it is a bit of a pain bacsue visually you think they should be able to hit the opposing unit or throw up and have "plunging fire". I guess the game figured if you have to throw with less force the missile will no longer do the same damage and flunging fire is not too realistic since the javelin has to arc up, then turn 180 deg then come down point first - much more difficult than just throwing straight.
If you want to get a good feel for range ina visual -battle sense, rin som test battles with various troops on fire-at-will mode and see at what point they then throw their missiles. As they are doing that, look at you unit from the side and if that trajectory would have a wall interposing it, they will not fire in the siege situation you mentioned.
I hope that helps.
Regards,
phalanx_man.
Re: Bercor and the spear position issue
Quote from: ahowl11 on February 18, 2014, 01:28:52 AM
Are they like this every time?
I don't think so, I only noticed in this battle.
Hello Bercor, Ahowl11.
Regarding the hoplites, you are right Ahowl11, the hoplite skeleton (fs_s1_hoplite) does this sometimes. I havent figured out the pattern as to what triggers this but it is something that is just a bug with this skeleton. It seems that a little more than half the time the hoplites point their dory forward (and slighty down) but sometimes they hold the butt end down (almost as if they are finishing off fallen troops). The reason I still use this skeleton (instead of the vanilla version (fs_spearman) ) is because it is still more correct than a regular spearman. It is impossible to have a true hoplite formation with the spear held to the side because that is where the next hoplite is.
Regarding the pikemen, this should not be happening. I am wondering Ahowl11, since you were modding the EDU file manually you may have inadvertently left off a couple of attibutes OR perhaps have the oncorrect skeketon in DMB. I know I did so a bunch of times when I was making changes en-masse in those files.
Check the following:
All PHALANX PIKEMEN units should have the following:
EDU.txt (on their pri attr line):
=====================
stat_pri_attr ap,long_pike, spear_bonus_8
DMB.txt:
======
(this is referred to from the EDU line "soldier" for that unit, so look for the entry after soldier in EDU and find that name in DMB)
skeleton fs_fast_spearman, fs_swordsman
Also, just to check, all HOPLITE units should have the following:
EDU.txt (on their pri attr line):
=====================
stat_pri_attr short_pike,spear_bonus_6
DMB.txt:
======
skeleton fs_s1_hoplite
Note, be sure that the hoplite skeleton only has ONE skeleton in the line. I tried to have 2 so that they could have a second weapon and go to swords if need be (historically, when the hoplite spears were smashed or the combat became too closely-spaced, the hoplites would go to their swords) BUT, what that does in-game is (1) spread out the formation (which is incorrect) and (2) when they charge they automatically go to swords first (also incorrect). The only way to solve it is by NOT having a second weapon for hoplite units.
Check it out and let me know.
If you cant find one of the 2 issues above maybe email me the EDU and DMB files and I can take a look myself.
Regards,
phalanx_man.
Re: B257
quote: Playing a new carthage campaign today I noticed something odd, Egypt had declared war on Armenia, I ignored it at first thinking it was nothing but every few turns it popped up and I didn't think Egypt had expanded so quickly, so When I toggled fog of war I saw that Armenia had a settlement in southwest Arabia. Is this a bug? because Armenia had pretty good sized garrison in the settlement but was getting thrashed by the seleucids who were pretty much duking it out with the egyptians./quote
The reason for this is because there was a loyalist-revolt (revolt settlement to not-rebels) and the settlement will default in ownership to either whomever is listed as "faction_creator" in descr_strat.txt OR whomever is listed as "default_culture" in descr_regions.txt (I am not sure which but I try to keep these 2 the same in my mod).
Since Arabs do not have a culture of their own, I remember the vanilla version used Armenia as the default culture or faction_creator and thats why this settlement revolts to Armenia. (I think in vanilla they figured the best match for Arabs was Armenia or Eastern culture) In my mod, I based all Arab settlements to be more closey related to the Carthaginian culture and use Carthage as the faction_creator and default_culture since I think that represents Arabs better.
Regards,
phalanx_man.
The issue with the pikemen is the skeleton. We use a twohanded skeleton and animation from EB. Looks like it came with that bug
Re: b257,
Quote from: b257 on February 19, 2014, 09:57:43 PM
You also might want to have a look at the principes and triarii. I fought a battle against the Scipii with an army of 4 upgraded Libyan Spears, 2 Veteran Slingers and 4 upgraded Long Shields against an army of 5 Hastati 2 principes, 1 trrarii, 1 archer and 1 cav plus a general. I swept aside the Hastati with some effort but those damn principes and triarii fought to the last man, My army of 948 was whittled down to 462 against just those three units :(
The reason you had trouble with the Principe and Triarii is because they are literally the best units of the game. You may be used to vanilla where if you flank a unit you are easily able to defeat it. This new version of combat results in less penalty for flank and rear attacks (see the writeup I did for the revised combat system to see why). Now, even if you have good troops flanking elite troops, you will have a hard time - and this is historically accurate. The romans often were badly outnumbered and still beat the oddds just due to superior armor, armament and discipline. The only real way to beat Rome is with the phalanx (but keep the line solid and protect the flanks at all costs - phalanx pikemen will rout if their flanks or rear are compromised). The other way is to always (but ALWAYS) use the BEST troops possible in your faction. I know if you have experienced mid-grade troops you are loth to discard them. What I do is use the lower quality (but experienced) troops to sweep for rebels or fight against non-Roman non-Phalanx opponents (like the parthians or barbarians etc) and send only the best against the Romans. This way, when they get experienced, they will be almost comperable to the Roman Principe/Triarii and Legionnaires.
Of course, once exhausted in combat, a heavy cavalry charge from the back or flank will rout even the best Roman units.
As the saying goes, "Infantry is the Queen of Battle and Cavalry is King."
Regards,
phalanx_man.
Re: Bercor
Quote from: Bercor on February 20, 2014, 03:11:01 PM
Well, I finished my Armenia campaign... with a defeat.
Spoiler
(http://gyazo.com/65449cebf98865af4e95b77bd870e2a5.png)
Granted I was not trying my best to win the campaign, but it's refreshing seeing the AI pull this off.
Macedon campaign, here I go (hopefully with some better results)!
Hello Bercor,
I agree that Egypt and Seleucid Empire are traditionally enemies. What happens is whoever you play, the AI stacks the deck aganist you. For example, when I played the Seleucids, the Egyptians would NEVER agree to a ceasefire with me. However, if I play Pontus, within 2 turns Egypt and Seleucids are best friends forever. That is just the way AI does it and even adjusting core attitudes (the bottom of descr_strat) does little to affect it.
On the other hand, I am happy to hear that you had a challenge in a campaign - one of the knocks I had against vanilla is that it was basically too easy to win. Now, even though the AI is still pretty stupid during battles, at least with a more realistic combat system winning is no longer "a given" but at least takes some thought and pre-battle preparation. For example, im my mod, I actually use spies quite a bit because I really need to know what troops I am up against before I challenge them to a battle. Each faction will have stregths and weaknesses. For me (I usually play as you may have guessed phalanx factions and the greeks), I have to look out for elephants because from the front I have no fear but if the elephants get at the flanks of my formation they will cause a lot of havoc and casualties and my heavy cavalry cant really help out.
Thanks for the positive feedback.
Regards,
phalanx_man.
Quote from: ahowl11 on February 23, 2014, 09:05:45 PM
The issue with the pikemen is the skeleton. We use a twohanded skeleton and animation from EB. Looks like it came with that bug
Strange, I've never seen that bug in EB. Maybe you should talk to someone from their team and ask how did they dealt with that.
Re: Mausolos of Caria
Quote from: Mausolos of Caria on February 21, 2014, 12:26:29 AM
Wuargh. I've just played a few turns with the Greeks. There seems to be a problem with the graphics, the campaign is a tad slow, and battles are terribly slow. Or well, not sure if slow is the right way to describe it, my peltasts were flying over the map like supermen, but I could only move slowly, like it happened on my 10 000 men battle on MTW2. Not sure why, since RTR VII, RS II and Invasio Barbarorum all work smoothly.
Hello Mauselos,
The battles will be slower than you are used to - that is due to the revised combat system (see the combat system writeup by me for this mod).
In terms of soldiers moving on the battlefield, the battle engine is actually decent at accounting for ARMOR. You will note that heavily armored units cannot walk or run as fast as light units (same for Cavalry). This is actually good since it more accurately reflects an armored man or horse being weghed down. Dont forget, a heavy infantryman would have up to 80 POUNDS of amor and weapons. That is 75% more than the weight of an unarmored man - he will definitely NOT be able to move as fast as a man with no armor, a small shield and 4 javelins (ie. peltast) Also, skirmish or archer cavalry will be able to move faster than cataphracts.
I would recommend the following: in order to get used to the differences, run some test battles and do the following:
Have 2 units on your side, one light & one heavy infantry and just make each of them RUN to the edge of one side of the battlefield from the same starting point (ie. dont engage the enemy unit). You will see how much faster the lighter unit is than the heavy. Do the same with a light and heavy cavalry unit.
Actually, in my opinion the game doesnt do a good enough job at this - there is only a slight difference (whereas there should be a huge difference). Also, the amrored units tire at the same rate as their unarmored counterparts (both running and in battle) and this should also be very different as the heavier unit should tire faster AS WELL AS moving much slower.
But as this is hardcoded, not much can be done about it.
Regards,
phalanx_man.
Well it's just an assumption at this point :)
Re: YourStepDad
Quote from: YourStepDad on February 21, 2014, 07:17:51 PM
Okay, here are my thoughts as the Julii VH/VH after some 20+ turns in the game.
Right off the bat, it feels like Polished/Retextured vanilla, which is a very good thing in my book. I am loving the nice touch you added to the animations, and generally how you retextured the units. Really job well done.
--- BATTLES ---
Now, I would say the battles are a bit problematic. Although I adore longer battles, such as they are in Roma Surrectum, here I feel they are somewhat unnatural. Fully surrounded units of 20 men and even below hold their ground when the battle is clearly over.
Likewise, skirmishers have problem with skirmishing, they tend to dive into melee by accident several times, often getting hopelessly mowed down in the process. Only after pulling them away from harms way AFTER some other melee unit of yours has engaged the enemy in melee do they stop to shower the enemy with javelins, regardless of whether skirmishing is on or off I think.
That would be it for now. Enjoyable, promising, pretty, but it needs work and balancing still. :)
Hello YourStepDad
Part I: End-Of-Battle Stragglers
======================
That first thing you mentioned is one of the unfortunate side-effects of the new combat system. In order to be more realistic in the early and middle stages of battle, there is this "hard-to-kill-the-last-stragglers" effect at the end of battle. Unfortunatley, it is either one or the other. In other words, we either have unrealistic beginning and middle stage of battle and realistic at the end OR realistic beginning and middle but unrealistic at the end. The reason for that is that I have reduced the penalty to flank and rear attacks because, when there is a UNIT that is surrounded, the rear and side ranks will turn to face the enemy and will naturally fight. No one will remain facing "forward" while an enemy soldier is striking him from behind. And since the ANIMATION shows the soldier turning and fighting, it makes sense that he does not suffer a massive penalty just becaiuse he is at the "back" of his unit (in Vanilla NO defense skill or shield applies to defense value from rear attacks, EVEN THOUGH the animation shows the soldier has turned to face the attack).
I think in Vanilla they figured that no soldier can face SIMULTANEOUS opponents from more than one direction, which is true for an INDIVIDUAL soldier - but NOT TRUE for a unit of many men in formation.
However, this (vanilla) version SHOULD be the case where there is only one rank left or when the soldiers are so spread out of formation that thay are individually isolated.
Unfortunately, there is no way to do both - that is to NOT have exessive penalty when there is a 2+ rows formation and a heavy penalty when there is only a few soldiers left in a unit. This combat system is an effort to have the lesser of 2 Evils.
I figured what was the point of having an unrealistic beginning & middle stage of battle since that determines who actually wins the battle. On the other hand, if the battle is over anyway (and was realistic up to that point), its not so bad to just press the speed up button to kill off the reamining soldiers who SHOULD be dead already.
One other thing you could do (that I do when this part is taking too long), is pull back my exhausted infantry unit and send in a fresh unit OR charge the stragglers with cavalry which usually kills the rest or puts them in rout after which they are killed off much easier. The only place this wont work is in the main square of a settlement (where they cant rout), but charging them will still take out a bunch and more quickly that in infantry-melee.
Hope this helps.
In my writeup I discuss at length the reason for it and the limitations of the RTW battle engine in this regard.
Part II: AI Skirmisher Bug
With respect to the skirmishers, that often happens with the AI units skirmishers, and is a reflection of the ai_formations file and not the EDU and DMB files. In my mod I have adjusted the AI-formation file but enemy skirmisher units still spread out unrealistically wide (dont know why that is) and then run back & forth sometimes firing and sometimes not. However, for your own (human) skirmisher units, they should be acting normally. Ie, if you have them attack in skirmish mode, they should do just that (approach, throw, fall back, then repeat until out of ammunition). In my battles, my skimishers behave normally. I think it is because the AI widens the formation excessively that it does something bad to that units "skirmishability". I have seen somehting similar with regular combat units if spread too wide - they seem to try to "rotate" the unit's axis even while it is engaged. However, If I keep the number of ranks deep enough this doesnt happen. I think that is just a bug of the RTW combat engine and I havent found a way to stop it from happening.
The one way I can see this happening to human units is when the defending AI unit is on a hill. The problem is that the skirmisher unit will approcah UNTIL IT IS IN RANGE BUT (and its a big BUT), the range really decreases if they are shooting uphill. Likewise, if they are defending from a unit that is attacking from downhill, their range is much longer (unrealistically so in my opinion).
If your (human) units are doing this when attacking an uphill-defending enemy, this is the reason. On the other hand, if the AI units are doing this when you are defending on high ground then that is also the reason. Try a couple of test battles on level ground and you should see that this doesnt happen (with the human skirmishers) and should happen much less badly with the AI skirmishers as well.
Regards,
phalanx_man.
One question I had is before I edited the EDU, certain skirmisher units were set up to be infantry units. Velites and Mercenary Peltasts were similar to infantry units as they started with swords instead of javelins, and didn't have skirmish ability on.
Hello All,
One way the overpopulation problem has been eliminated in my mod and in various other mods is as follows:
(A) Elimintate the "grain" resource completely from the descr_regions.txt file
(B) Elimintate the "grain" resource completely from the descr_strat.txt file
The reason you get overpopulation is the grain resource is traded. The RTW campaign engine will, for example, trade grain from city A to city B. This should increase the food available in city B and decrease it for city A.
However...
What it actually does is increase the food (thus population growth) for city B and NOT CHANGE the food (and population growth rate) of city A.
If both City A and B trade grain to each other - EACH gets abonus from receiving each others grain (?!?)
In other words it is double counting the grain resource - it increases the pop rate of the receiving city yet not balancing that from the sending city.
Then, what happens is if you get several citiies with the grain resource all trading with one another, they ALL get a bonus from grain from EACH sity they are trading with. Thus 5 cities trading grain with each other, each raises the pop growth by 2 percent or so x 5 = 10% increase for EACH of those cities. The more cities, the more growth...
Due to this double accounting bug, just eliminate it altogether as other mods such as RTR-gold edition did. (for some reason they brought it back in platinum edition).
You can safely remove it and all the other effects of farming upgrades still work properly.
ie. if you have farming upgrades, you still have more stores of food for siege, you have more harvest income etc...
In fact, the grain resource has nothing to do with you farming income - ONLY a fraction of trade income and of pop growth.
I removed it from my mod and it is the best thing I ever did. In fact, to me it is more realistic that cities had to fight to get their populations up rather than fight to get them down. In an age of constant warfare, disease, primitive medicine a city had to creatively think of ways to not lose population and have it grow - not the opposite.
Also, many regons (like Greece) traditionally did not have huge populations and if they lost a battle (and lost a lot of men) they would not be able to raise another army for nearly another full generation. Thus having huge population rates makes it less important to lose afull stack army because you can recruit another in a few turns if you have several high-pop-growth cities - and you wouldnt even notice it.
What I did was use the government building to give predetermined pop-growth bonuses to certain factions IN certain cities. For example, I put a pop-growth bonus for Italian cities IF the owning faction was Roman. This reflects that Rome always had large reserves of available manpower. But this way another faction conquering that region would not get the same bonus. Actually, I did the same with happiness and income bonuses as well to give more value to a faction's "core regions" versus their colonies.
This way I, as a player, I find it more challening to monitor that I am not depleting manpower from my cities for low grade troops that I will then not have men available when I am ready to recruit high-grade ones - and I certainly would not want to take high losses of any troops I have since I could not replace them easily. I even had to (for the Greek and Macedonian cities) transfer population by recruiting the lowest grade troops from other cities and migrate & disband them in my core cities.
Anyway, just a suggestion.
Regards,
phalanx_man
Hello Ahowl11,
Quote from: ahowl11 on February 23, 2014, 09:05:45 PM
The issue with the pikemen is the skeleton. We use a twohanded skeleton and animation from EB. Looks like it came with that bug
There is a 2-handed pike skeleton you can use for RTW. From appearances it is far superior to the fs_fast_spearman BUT I found in my playtesting that it had a VERY high variance for kill rates. Most variances of multiple runs of combat were about +/- 10% but the 2 handed pike was about +/-50%.
I think the reason was because the skeleton thrusts a VERY short distance, and this seems to be important in terms of kill rate.
I would have used it in my mod, but I wanted the kill rates to be more stable.
However, if you want to try using it, replace the pikemen skeletons to the following:
For PHALANX PIKEMEN, CHANGE
skeleton fs_fast_spearman, fs_s1_barbswordsman
TO
skeleton fs_thp_f_spearman, fs_s1_barbswordsman
It definitely looks more correct, but behaves more erratically for ths kill rate.
Regards,
phalanx_man.
Hello Ahowl11,
One minor change I would recommend in the EDU file.
I had originally had all hoplites with a lethality (skeleton correction factor) of 0.2 based on my battle testing of a few years ago.
However, I recall that this skeleton was a little quirky and I had to chose between 0.2 and 0.3 (ideally I would have liked 0.25 but more than one decimal simply gets truncated).
In recent battles I had decided it is more balanced to have hoplites as 0.3 instead of 0.2.
So, if you want - change all HOPLITE units in EDU to 0.3 (like other spearmen) instead of 0.2.
Regards,
phalanx_man.
Okay, will do! Also, excellent ideas!
Did you see my post about the skirmishers?
Quote from: ahowl11 on February 23, 2014, 10:42:18 PM
One question I had is before I edited the EDU, certain skirmisher units were set up to be infantry units. Velites and Mercenary Peltasts were similar to infantry units as they started with swords instead of javelins, and didn't have skirmish ability on.
Hi Ahowl11,
Sorry I overlooked your earlier post.
I remember now what I did to partially compensate for the AI skirmish bug. I noted that the AI treats the unit differently if it is a "skirmisher" unit instead of "infantry".
I had also noted early on in my work that there were many "heavy skirmish" type units (like the heavy peltasts of Thrace, Greece and Carthage), and to me it began to blur the lines of what is light infantry versus heavy skirmisher and how "heavy" does a skirmish unit have to be before it is considered more "infantry" than "skirmisher".
Dont forget that a Roman Legionnaire is equipped just like a heavy skirmisher only with Chain Mail for amor. In all other ways thay are equipped the same (both have a large shield and a good sword and javelins - the only other difference is the romans use the more effective pilum versus a traditional javelin).
Also, when I was playing and had heavy skirmish infantry on my side, it was problematic both in the formations.txt file and in actual battle to manipulate them (unless they were infantry instead of skirmishers in EDU).
For example, there are many skirmish units that are equipped with spear instead of a knife and are consequently better to defend flanks from light cavalry as well as flank the enemy. But if you keep forgetting to turn off skirmish mode, they start running when you are looking the other way and before you know it you have lost most of them to a cavalry charge while your attention was diverted elsewhere on the battlefield. I wanted to make battle management less micro-managing so the player could focus more on the key elements of battle.
So, I decided to spend some time to actually subdivide and catergorize skirmish units - and in the end you will see how I divided them. If you look thru my EDU file that you used to manually edit yours, I seperated skirmishers into the following subclasses:
(A) HEAVY SKIRMISH INFANTRY,
(B) SUCCESSOR STYLE SKIRMISH INFANTRY,
and
(C) PURE SKIRMISH INFANTRY.
Heavy Skirmish Infantry would have LARGE shields, some/no armor and a decent melee weapon
Successor Style would have SMALL shields, some armor and a SPEAR as a melee weapon
Pure Skirmish Infantry have no armor, and a small shield (or no shield) and USUALLY a knife for melee (some exceptions)
I later thought that some of those in the aforementioned categories were better classed as skirmishers based on the FIGHTING STYLE of their factions rather than purely based on their equipment. For that reason I changed Velites, Gallic Skirmishers and Germanic Youngspears back to Skirmishers after having them as infantry for a while.
For example, the Roman Velites, even though equipped as heavy skirmishers would NOT historically throw and engage but would throw and fall back leaving the Legionnaires to continue the melee. In a pinch they may be called upon for battle if all else was lost but never under normal circumstances.
On the other hand, many of those heavy skirmishers (that I changed to infantry) WOULD have been used in place of their heavier counterparts if there were no heavy counterparts available (like the Iberians, Illyrians, Thracians and Greeks).
In addition, I could not resolve the idea that men with large heavy shields were tasked to purely skirmish. These shields would weight up to 20 lbs - imagine skirmishing with that weight on one arm during the course of a battle. Typically those large-shield skirmishers were tasked to flanking duties, flank defense for the main troops and could even support the main troops in the main battle line itself. Since they were better defended with their shield and sometimes even some armor, it made sense to classify them as light infantry (with a precursor weapon) rather than pure "skirmish" infantry.
It was actually quite a long evolution in my play-testing that got the skirmisher category to where it is now.
Sorry for not explaining that earlier,
Regards,
phalanx_man.
I see, thank you for all of the explanations. Have you had a chance to test the BETA?
Sorry, not yet.
As we are in the middle of moving everything to my new job it will be difficult to play test for the next week or two until we are finally settled and I am stably at my new job.
As soon as I can I will download the mod and play it.
The only reason I was able to answer the questions is because we had a few days with some friends en route to our new place of residence.
BTW - I am not yet familiar with the way Exilian has set up everything. Where do I go to eventually download the beta ?
Okay that is fine. The download link is on the first post of this thread :)
I feel stupid but cant get target line to work
What's happening?
When i add -show_err-nm-mod line to targest it says it dosnt work
You need spaces in between each command
Ok then like :gandalfgrey: it worked lol. Im looking at the factions now ill let you know who i pic
Ok ill be testing thrace
Thrace is taken. What about Germania?
I would like to test Egypt or Seleucid. Is it okay?
I get an errorless CTD when trying to start a campaign. Any ideas what this is about?
Edit: Nevermind. All fixed and running.
Alrighty no problem
Quote from: Prince Eugene on February 24, 2014, 08:32:03 AM
I would like to test Egypt or Seleucid. Is it okay?
Egypt is taken. Go ahead with the Seleucids.
Hey phalanx_man, thanks for your answer. It was more of a technical problem, but it seems to run better now and I like the battle mechanics :)
Not sure if this is supposed to go here. I started a campaign as the Britons, holed up in England and let the AI duke it out. By now, it's 220 BC.
Rome controls Sicily, southern Greece, Italy, the Alps, southern Gaul, northern Spain, and is about to conquer the rest of the Iberian peninsula. They have recently declared war on Egypt, who has by now conquered the seleucid homelands, all while fighting a desert war with Carthage.
The "What The Hell" award goes to the Thracians, who are busy annexing the Caucasus.
Extinct factions are Numidia (253BC), Parthia (237), Gaul (234) and Macedon (225). The Greek Cities and Pontus are holing up in their last respective settlement with a stack of units.
It seems like Pontus, Parthia and Numidia are suffering from a severe lack of cash.
Also had some random CTDs right during the first turns (none after that). Scared the armadillo out of me - I thought it was because of my traits, but that isn't really possible.
Are the Seleucids and Ptolemies at war? Did they conquer any significant territory to each other?
Like I said, the Ptolemies (=Egypt) have the Seleucid heartlands: Syria, Mesopotamia, as well as southern Asia Minor. It seems like the Seleucids invested a lot of resources into conquering India, which kept revolting to Parthia (who did absolutely nothing during the entire game, as did Pontus). Armenia did pretty well, snatching one or two settlements from the Seleucids, until Thrace came knocking.
I suppose the Ptolemies's conquest would have gone even more smoothly, if it hadn't been for Carthage.
Ah, ok. Sorry, my brain skipped that.
Post some screens? Yes, I did a small test with Parthia, and they go in the red pretty quickly. It seems after xsithspawnx's Pontic campaign that money could also be an issue. Numidia doesn't surprise me.
Yeah Thrace is surprisingly powerful in this BETA.
Screenshots aren't working for me. All I get when inserting the shots into paint is a black windows desktop.
Use this program:
https://gyazo.com/
Easiest way to upload screens to the net.
The problem is not that I can't share the shots, but that I can't take them. All I get is a black screen.
I see... Do you use Fraps?
http://www.fraps.com/
No. I'll try it next Tuesday, when I can download properly again.
Singing up.
I just figured out you where talking about ROME I xD.
I'm good with Hellenic Warfare and Nomadic Warfare,count me in for testing that!
Maybe you can test Scythia?
Yup Scythia would be good
Hi there ;)
@Sloth I had the same problem, I think that just happens with Rome I on Windows 7. Fraps works alright for me.
Quote from: The Sloth on February 26, 2014, 05:05:53 PM
The problem is not that I can't share the shots, but that I can't take them. All I get is a black screen.
I had the same problem and Like Mausolos I too have windows 7, But I agree with Mausolos Fraps gets the job done
Quote from: Bercor on February 26, 2014, 06:07:55 PM
Maybe you can test Scythia?
Phatia and Scyhitia,alright !
Okay..played some Campaign and custom battles.
Things you should change:
Battle Aspects:
Attack:
-Range (Like literately every single of my horse archer units had huge range)
-Damage (Chased unit of Hoplites [33] with Scytian Horse Archers [120] killed 3 and wasted all of my arrows (WAT !).Looks like Hoplites are immune to arrows lol.)
Unit Roster :
All of Schytian horseman were both skilled with bow and spear,you need units that can use both.
General Unit has to be changed as it has no connections with the factions realistic warfare,use Noble Horse Archer model instead and add arrows!
Campaign:
I don't remember warriors of the steps building roads,only enable them to make basic roads and make their construction 4 turns.
That's what I got from todays testing ;).
EDIT: What is wrong with this website o.o ?
I'll test Parthia.
Thanks for the report Skitoritto! And Ravager's Prey, have at it, they are tough to play with right now!
For All new BETA testers please play at least twenty turns and take a screen of your financial situation. Then post that here.
All Beta testers, please take some screenshots of your battles, so they can be previewed in the release (that will happen tomorrow).
Tried testing the Britons. Got through 4 turns and the garrison of the city I attacked sallied. (The one west of Londinium)
Battle started, got my guys into position and when I tried to move my General it crashed. No error given. Got this off the windows report.
Spoiler
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: RomeTW-BI.exe
Application Version: 1.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 438af4c4
Fault Module Name: RomeTW-BI.exe
Fault Module Version: 1.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 438af4c4
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0039ee87
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.4
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 0e2c
Additional Information 2: 0e2c0ce7d0663874459b079f20022d84
Additional Information 3: 93c2
Additional Information 4: 93c2b111198786a79a0cea500c224e6f
Looks more like a windows error than something to do with Rome though.
I had it on huge unit settings too, quick google search says that could have been the problem. I also am using steam to play it. System specs shouldn't be an issue.
I think it's some random crash happens from time to time. I also use huge unit settings and play through Steam, and never had any persistent problem.
Just try again and hopefully it'll run withouth problems.
BI tends to crash randomly for some reason
Yeah, sucks but that's common in BI, happens to me all the time.
Oddly enough I've never had BI crash randomly before. (Not counting the demo some years ago)
EDIT: Haha, still no random crashes from BI! :gandalfgrey:
Uploading mod now. depositfiles is at 53% and mediafire is at 59% :)
It's out!
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?643025-RTR-Project-Imperial-Campaign-v0-5&p=13673701#post13673701
Huzzah!
Congrats, well done to all who worked on it. It looks absolutely amazing! :D
Great job!
Congrats everyone :), now the bitter work begins :balrog: