AI Battle Formation Mods

[Lysander13]

Ave fellow EB fans,


The following download is a zip file that contains several folders with installers within. This download will provide the EB Player with the opportunity to play EB using alternative Battle AI Formations and/or Player Formations. The EB Player will have the option to install either Darth Formations 16.2, Sinuhet’s 7.0 AI Battle Formations, and/or Marcus Camillus Player Formations with new formation buttons for the Roman UI. Provided with MC’s Player Formations will be his readme.txt file, which if one is inclined, can be referred to as a guide if need be. As it illustrates the proper unit mixture for sharp looking Republican and Imperial Legion Formations at it relates to this add-on. All the while, maintaining the ability to draw upon various non-roman formations as well. I’ve also taken the liberty of including an EB Archive installer. In which all modified files affected by the various add-ons included in this download, will be in their original form. So if at any point, the EB Player is so inclined, he or she can revert back to their original installation, simply by running the installer and pointing it towards the root directory of their EB installation.

These add-ons are intended for EB v1.1 installed on RTW 1.5. However, can be used and installed in the same fashion with no conflicts, if you happen to run EB with the BI executable ( 1.6 ) or ALEX.exe. These add-ons are also compatible with most unofficial fan made mods floating around the EB forums. As long as the unofficial mod that is to be used in conjunction with one of these add-ons doesn’t have it’s own formations or happen to be a mod-foldered mini mod. Then all should be good to go. The various add-ons and edited files provided here, merely reflect my “tastes” in gameplay and in the editing process. In that respect, perhaps they will suit others as well.

Credits:

Darth Vader: For permitting me the opportunity to share a modified version of his Darth Formations 16.2 code with my fellow EB Players.

Sinuhet: For permitting me the opportunity to share a modified version of his 7.0 AI Battle Formations code with my fellow EB Players.

Marcus Camillus: For graciously giving me leave to include his player formations mod in this download.

Snake_IV: For his formation buttons for the Roman UI.

Last, but certainly not least…….

The entire Europa Barbarorum team for their hardwork and dedication to providing us their fans, with a truly rich and unique gaming experience centered in the Classical World we all love and they have managed to bring to life in details to numerous to name.



Installation Instructions:
1) Unpack download in a place of your choosing.
2) Choose add-on and go into it’s respective folder.
3) Run installer located in folder and point towards the root directory of your EB installation.
For example I call my installation Europa Barbarorum. So were I to point the Installer to my root directory….it would look like this…….
C:\Program Files\The Creative Assembly\Europa Barbarorum…
yours may be something like this….
C:\Program Files\Activision or The Creative Assembly\Rome-Total War 1.5…
4) Once target line is acquired, finish running the installer. It will take care of the rest.

Final Note: If installing Darth Formations along with MC’s Player Formations. MC’s Player Formations must be installed second in the installation procedure. The order is of no consequence if installing MC’s Player Formations with Sinuhet’s.


Vale,
Lysander13

Download Link:
http://files.filefront.com/AI+Battle.../fileinfo.html

[mcantu]

You have no idea how long i've been waiting for something like this!!!

[Thaatu]

[mlp071]

Great job

I am glad to see more variations in battle tactics for EB.It just makes EB more enjoyable and better

[Lysander13]

Thanks mlp. It was actuallly with your encouragement that i decided to seek permission and upload these edited files in the first place. I have always enjoyed playing EB with either Darth's or Sinuhet's AI, perhaps there will be others who enjoy one or the other as well.

On a side note, for those who haven't done so already; if you choose to use one of these formation mods or really even if you don't, I would go ahead and make one small change to the edu. It involves the class line entry in the edu. Change all units that have a class line entry of "skirmish" to "missile".
( There's about 37 or so) It appears as of the next release this will be done anyway ( MAA i believe said so more or less recently in a thread around here somewhere ) but it's something simple so you might as well just get it over with now. So you won't have to ask yourself why on some occasions you'll see Velites, Peltastai or some other unit affixed with the skirmish tag lining up somewhere they shouldn't be. Not to mention mcantu pointed out that this small change seems to solve AI spamming javelin units in campaign. Which makes perfect sense when you think about it because sometimes a javelin unit affixed with the skirmish tag will be placed in an infantry slot within the formation and on the same token it seems be spammed as an infantry unit in campaign when it's obvious that shouldn't be the intent. It seems the code is remnant to some extent but appears to me anyway not fully functional perhaps. Anyway, in case someone doesn't know what in hades i'm talking about here is the code for the edu....

in your text editor use the replace function (ctrl-H for notepad users)
in the find what box copy/paste the following entry:

class            skirmish

in the replace with box copy/paste the following entry:

class            missile

Click replace all and save.

[Patriote]

edu = export_descr_unit ???

[mcantu]

yes

[GracchusTheGreat]

Darth's have been working stupendously!

Sinhuet's have trouble with AI reinforcements. Often the reinforcing army enters the battlefield and remains in place at the far endl. Frustrating.

Darth's armies join up before attacking, sometimes from different angles. Very cool.

[Lysander13]

Originally posted by GracchusTheGreat

Darth's have been working stupendously!

Good to hear your enjoying them.

Sinhuet's have trouble with AI reinforcements. Often the reinforcing army enters the battlefield and remains in place at the far endl. Frustrating.

Hmmm...Just out of curiosity what unit size were you playing with when you experienced the idle reinforcing army using Sinuhet's? Did you happen to experience this on more than one occasion? I'm gonna check it out and see if i can get it to happen to me and while i am at it i'll double check the purpose flags as well to make sure everything is in order.

Darth's armies join up before attacking, sometimes from different angles. Very cool.

I'm actually enjoying Darth's myself in my current KH campaign. All things being relative; i'm loving the way the AI is handling itself. Specifically in battle vs. a cavalry heavy army. It is really cool to actually see the enemy literally contract and expand let's say their missile cav to cover just about an entire flank and then they just start to pepper that entire flank before charging in to crumble it. Good stuff

Edit: Purpose flags all seem to be in order. Specifically the multi role flag that is apparantly the one responsible for AI's use of reinforcement armies. Tried several battles where the AI had reinforcements and did not experience "idle" AI reinforcement army on any occasion using Sinuhet AI.

[madmatg]

i have had the idle reinforcements also with Sinhuit's
i am playing on large unit size, with no other mods. It doesnt happen everytime, i also am still dealing with the suicide AI Family members fairly often. They just charge straight into my thureuphoroi or whatever is on the flanks, they do this quite often before their army even arrives, i have to kinda run away just to avoid killing them before their army arrives. any help for this?

[Lysander13]

i have had the idle reinforcements also with Sinhuit's
i am playing on large unit size, with no other mods. It doesnt happen everytime, i also am still dealing with the suicide AI Family members fairly often. They just charge straight into my thureuphoroi or whatever is on the flanks, they do this quite often before their army even arrives, i have to kinda run away just to avoid killing them before their army arrives. any help for this?

Well here's the thing to keep in mind when one chooses to use either Darth's or Sinuhet's AI for EB no matter who has edited the file. Perhaps not as much with Darth's because he forces minimum and maximum width values in his formations that can override any mods edu parameters, ( presuming one is using a version where these values are not being omitted ) nevertheless this holds true for his formations to some extent as well. Both of these AI mods were tested and tweaked using different edu settings than EB's as they were obviously not made for EB. The edu and the Battle AI are intertwined; to what extent i don't believe there has been a consensus reached.....but as it's relative to Darth's and especially Sinuhet's AI edited for EB the thing to keep in mind is this....width and length of unit formation as defined by the edu and perhaps to a lesser extent the number of soldiers in the unit has a direct correlation with the optimal performance of either Darth's Formations ( to a lesser extent..i would say ) but especially Sinuhet's. I say to a lesser extent with Darth because he forces width values so unit cohesion stays on the moving template or sphere of control as the theory goes....Sinuhet doesn't force width values or at least not in the manner Darth does...So his formations for optimal performance require that the edu be tweaked to take his formations into account or what may happen from time to time is as you stated....idle reinforcements...or suicidal charges that make no sense because the template leaks sort of speak perhaps causing a unit or reinforcements to be idle or the sphere of control is lost as it's relative to formation cohesion and you get a beserky general charging right onto a wall of pikes.

I guess what i'm saying is for optimal performance of either Darth's or Sinuhet's AI the edu would have to be tweaked and i'd venture to say most EB players would not want something like that in the form of a mini-mod made by someone who wasn't on the team out of concern of perhaps unbalancing things a bit and perhaps rightfully so. I'm guessing most EB players would prefer the team itself handle something like that. Which BTW i'm not suggesting they should do. As i understand it they have their own plans in this area.

[madmatg]

ah, well, sadness...i'll just have to deal with some random easy AI's til the next release

thanks for the info

[Lysander13]

Actually i have to extend my apologies to an earlier poster in this thread who mentioned he encountered an idle reinforcing army from time to time using Sinuhet's AI as well. I went on to say i went back and tested it out several times and never encountered that problem. What i failed to remember was that i have an altered EDU file that i use with Sinuhet's formations so our end results in terms of effectiveness are gonna be a little different... My bad...

Darth Formations can generally be used "universally" by any mod because of his width forcing. Sinuhet's have to be more custom fitted sort of speak....at least in my opinion anyway.

[Dram]

thanks for this mod.

i just want to say that contrary to some of the opinions i have heard about darth mod, it DOES improve the way that the enemy deploys its troops. to me its not even about the formations- i dont care how the AI sets itself up at the start, its entirely pointless because the AI will not remain in that formation anyway. the reason why darth mod is better than the default formations is because the AI attacks more intelligently. It sticks its troops together properly, flanks, and just generally behaves in a much less stupid manner. thats not to say that its great, considering how poor the RTW AI is in general, theres only so much that can be improved, but this does GENUINELY make the AI behave in a much less stupid manner compared to the default EB formation settings and it was only after I installed this I started to get some decent battles out of the enemy.

I really think this component needs to be considered about this mod rather than whether the formations are realistic or not.

[Lysander13]

thanks for this mod.

Your quite welcome friend.

I just wanted to mention real quick on the topic of some who've mentioned in this thread experiencing and "idle" reinforcing army while using Sinuhet's AI:

This had me really curious as i've never experienced this using Sinuhet's AI. Mind you, i'm not doubting this occured; it's just genuinely something i haven't seen yet for some weird reason. I've seen it playing Vanilla RTW, i also saw it while toying around with Darth's Formations while omitting his width forcing ( and changing other things as well ) while playing with huge units ( never seen it however in regular Darth with his width forcing left in place as well as leaving alone the offsets he set up ), and i've also seen it with the regular EB AI. I always just chalked it up to the mysteries of the hardcoded AI; except in the case when i was toying around with Darth's where i knew the changes i made were directly responsible. But again for some strange reason...never seen it happen using Sinuhet's. At first i thought maybe i wasn't seeing this happen because i was using an edited EDU file where i had changed the width and depth of the units to see how they responded using Sinuhet's AI. So i put back the original EB EDU; thinking maybe the culprit perhaps was some of the width and depth of the units and maybe leaking out of the "AI template" sort of speak and maybe that was causing the reinforcing army to stay "idle". Well...no this appears to be a case where i was seriously out-thinking myself. As i didn't experience it with the original EB EDU either.

So i decided to ask around a little bit and see what other's who use Sinuhet's AI in different mods had to say....I was pretty much told the same thing more or less..This is apparantly something that happens at random no matter the AI. It can be limited to a good extent by getting the "offsets" in the formation right, however still occurs on occasion but if modded wrong it can really screw it up and the reinforcing army will be "idle" all the time. In case one does not want to just take my word on this and needs a second voice sort of speak...I"ll qoute here on this thread and i hope he won't mind; Aradan one of the developers of the excellent mod FATW:The New Shadow. Qouted from The Complete EDU-Discussion thread in the modding question forum here at the org; where i asked him if any FATW players reported instances of an idle reinforcing army using Sinuhet's AI.

Originally posted by Aradan

I don't think any have, but I have seen it happening some times. But i have seen it hapenning with vanilla and Darth too. I have restricted it a bit by changing some offsets, but I don't think there's a way to solve it completely, due to the way the formations are coded - and the lack of a descrimination between normal and reinforcing armies.

So there it is....it would seem...The mysteries and aggravating instances of the hard-coded AI prevail once again.

[Dooz]

Wow, great job Lysander. Y'see, EB not only has the best mod team, it also has the best mini-modder community. With mods like this, the AI balancing mod by redmeth and Mlp071, and all the other great ones, it just keeps things going in a better direction.

I'm actually just about to start up an EB campaign, something I haven't done since 0.8x was released all those many months ago, and all because of these great mods and reading campaign reports and AAR's. Ooo, I'm all primed for some EB lovin'.

Ok this is getting weird. I'll just be over here installing.....

Thanks once again Lysander, can't wait to play with the formations pumping on all cylinders.

[Lysander13]

Thank you for the kind words Wonderland. Stay tuned as i will be updating this download very soon to include a few changes that i feel improve the effectiveness of the formations as well as adding a few extra goodies..

[Dram]

do you think the darth formations would be compatible with the new version?

[Ludens]

do you think the darth formations would be compatible with the new version?

Sure, but EB also worked on their own formations (although they are still not as extensive as Darth's or Sinuhet's), so please give them a try before you replace them.

[The_Mark]

Thank you, Ludens

[Redmeth]

The formations The_Mark made to a good job IMO you get flanked a lot and they arrange and behave very well, don't just compare the size of the files try them out first.

[Uranos]

There is also another things - descr_formations_ai.txt is close related on export_descr_units.txt so while using Darth's, Sinuhet's and The_Mark's (EB) formations on mod X you may find Darth' and Sinuhet's a bit better, for EB those 3 are more or less comparable imo.

[Lysander13]

Edited 1st post in this thread. Download has been updated to accommodate a few changes.

---Changes to Sinuhet file.
Added the engage_at_will tag to all missile units in attack formation. ( infantry & cavalry ) . So now when the formation toggles in battle… It’ll look like this for missile units….

--Defend:
default_melee_state fire_at_will_and_defend_and_skirmish

--Attack/Defend: ( Approaching Formation)
default_melee_state fire_at_will_and_skirmish

Now the formation toggles for Attack..
default_melee_state fire_at_will_and_engage_at_will_and_skirmish.

I changed this because I believe this setting takes better advantage of a lot of the missile units in EB that double as let’s say pretty damn good light infantry and light cavalry. This tag was prevalent in an earlier version of Sinuhet Formations, i’ve just re-introduced it to this version. Made a few other various changes to this file as well.

--I have changed the movement modifiers for what I believe is a better feel for these formations.
-- Added Marcus Camillus Player Formations to the download.
-- New formation buttons for the user interface.

[Lysander13]

**Shameful Bump from 2nd page abyss**

[Diamondj]

I feel dumb asking this but is it possible for someone to explain exactly what these formation mods do?

[Lysander13]

I feel dumb asking this but is it possible for someone to explain exactly what these formation mods do?

They simply provide alternatives to how the "AI" groups it's forces, moves with it's forces and subsequently attacks/defends with them.

[cmacq]

mate, your a class act.

[Lysander13]

[Leviathan DarklyCute]

Lysander13 can you please upload another mirror not on filefront because filefront doesn't work for me? (and if it possible, not from megaupload too...)

[Lysander13]

No problem.....Perhaps this one will work for you....
http://www.zshare.net/download/521764016cecd8/