RTR Project 'Grand Campaign' BETA Testing 0.5!

[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.

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.

[ahowl11]

I see, thank you for all of the explanations. Have you had a chance to test the BETA?

[phalanx_man]

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 ?

[ahowl11]

Okay that is fine. The download link is on the first post of this thread

[eagleeye4444]

I feel stupid but cant get target line to work

[ahowl11]

What's happening?

[eagleeye4444]

When i add -show_err-nm-mod line to targest it says it dosnt work

[ahowl11]

You need spaces in between each command

[eagleeye4444]

Ok then like  it worked lol. Im looking at the factions now ill let you know who i pic

Ok ill be testing thrace

[ahowl11]

Thrace is taken. What about Germania?

[Prince Eugene]

I would like to test Egypt or Seleucid. Is it okay?

[The Sloth]

I get an errorless CTD when trying to start a campaign. Any ideas what this is about?

Edit: Nevermind. All fixed and running.

[eagleeye4444]

Alrighty no problem

[Bercor]

I would like to test Egypt or Seleucid. Is it okay?

Egypt is taken. Go ahead with the Seleucids.

[Mausolos of Caria]

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