Deleting Fire Arrows Special Ability!

[Red Harvest]

It is possible to eliminate the fire arrow special ability. Some smarter person probably already has this figured out, but it stumped me when I first tried.

In the past I've been annoyed by the AI's penchant to shoot fire arrows at infantry, cavalry, birds flying by, etc. Unfortunately, the fire arrow special ability is tied to foot archers and is not directly modifiable as a unit stat as best I can tell. However, the HA bug led me to revisit the problem. I tried using the "thrown" attribute for archers as we did with HA's, but that didn't eliminate fire arrows. So next I tried the following edit for Roman Archers in the export_descr_units.txt file:

Original:
stat_pri 7, 2, arrow, 120, 30, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1

Altered:
stat_pri 7, 2, javelin, 120, 30, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1

This worked! The fire arrow special ability was gone. However, this had the drawback of 1) the projectile being a javelin 2) The arc and range are reduced because the javelin has a different trajectory.

After this success, I decided to try something in descr_projectile_new.txt

What I did was to copy the whole entry for "projectile arrow" and place this copy at the bottom of the page. I then changed this copied section's name to:

projectile arrow2

After this I went back to my Roman Archers and changed their stats to:

stat_pri 7, 2, arrow2, 120, 30, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1

Initial tests indicate that this is working without crashing the game, etc. The archers appear to behave normally, but no longer have the fire arrow special ability. I need to do some more testing and see if it interferes with anything, such as AI deployment, etc.

If anyone notices a problem with this, please post it. Thanks!

[Wh1teWolf]

Why the hell would you want to do that? Fire arrows drasticaly drop the moral of the enemy but is difficult against heavy armored troops, I usualy put a front rank of archers without fire arrows and a back rank using fire arrows and it works like a charm on annihalating my foes. Fire onagers realy increase that devestation the enemy receives.

[HarunTaiwan]

Because fire arrows weren't used in battles back then.

Fire catapults, yes.

Maybe in a siege fire arrows.

[Red Harvest]

They weren't used much as anti-personnel, but he AI loves to use them in that role. And the way they are implemented is a bit hard to swallow, especially when they are firing in heavy rain. So I plan on removing them for the same reasons I am removing wardogs and head hurlers.

[HarunTaiwan]

I do find satisfaction when they "vaporize" chariots or Elephants, but it's like Science Fiction.

[Wh1teWolf]

LMFAO you are freaks, and let me ask this, I am a history major and no where does it say that Fire Arrows were not used in that time frame so where do you come up with this crap?

Also I find that Fire Arrows have reduced damage in wet weather.

[RJV]

It is possible to eliminate the fire arrow special ability. Some smarter person probably already has this figured out, but it stumped me when I first tried.

In the past I've been annoyed by the AI's penchant to shoot fire arrows at infantry, cavalry, birds flying by, etc. Unfortunately, the fire arrow special ability is tied to foot archers and is not directly modifiable as a unit stat as best I can tell. However, the HA bug led me to revisit the problem. I tried using the "thrown" attribute for archers as we did with HA's, but that didn't eliminate fire arrows. So next I tried the following edit for Roman Archers in the export_descr_units.txt file:

Original:
stat_pri 7, 2, arrow, 120, 30, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1

Altered:
stat_pri 7, 2, javelin, 120, 30, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1

This worked! The fire arrow special ability was gone. However, this had the drawback of 1) the projectile being a javelin 2) The arc and range are reduced because the javelin has a different trajectory.

After this success, I decided to try something in descr_projectile_new.txt

What I did was to copy the whole entry for "projectile arrow" and place this copy at the bottom of the page. I then changed this copied section's name to:

projectile arrow2

After this I went back to my Roman Archers and changed their stats to:

stat_pri 7, 2, arrow2, 120, 30, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1

Initial tests indicate that this is working without crashing the game, etc. The archers appear to behave normally, but no longer have the fire arrow special ability. I need to do some more testing and see if it interferes with anything, such as AI deployment, etc.

If anyone notices a problem with this, please post it. Thanks!

Just out of interest, is it possible to mod this file to add a new 'thrown2' attribute which has a bow as the icon in battle - I still find it confusing seeing the javelin icon. No biggie of course, just a thought...

(at work now so don't have my files to hand)

Cheers,

Rob.

[CBR]

LMFAO you are freaks, and let me ask this, I am a history major and no where does it say that Fire Arrows were not used in that time frame so where do you come up with this crap?

In the future it would be nice if you didnt call people freaks, just because they want to mod their own game in a certain way.

And I havent read much about fire arrows being used in battles but in sieges they could be used yes. It takes time to prepare such arrows so not much use for it in battles.


CBR

[Ser Clegane]

Hehe - I am not sure I would have survived a lot of sieges against my cities without the fire arrows, but then with the fire arrows defending against the enemy's siege equipment often is a tad easy (usually their tunnels collapse ebfore the units get through and the siege towers never manage to get more than one unit on the walls).

I regular battles the fire arrows definitely seem unrealistic when they are used by units that are continuously advancing.

[The Stranger]

yes that's true but they were used but only one volley, and after that they went back to normal arrows.

[MacBeth]

What's a history major - less than a colonel ?

[Red Harvest]

LMFAO you are freaks, and let me ask this, I am a history major and no where does it say that Fire Arrows were not used in that time frame so where do you come up with this crap?

Also I find that Fire Arrows have reduced damage in wet weather.

I come up with this "crap" by reading and studying the subjects. Anyway, fire arrows tended to be used more in sieges. Fixed settings with fairly specific purposes. Rather than every archer unit dragging pots of naptha around with them.

Fire arrows working at all in wet weather makes little sense... And the way they are implemented/used doesn't fit what I've read. Limiting them to sieges or attack structures would be fine. Forcing a unit to be stationary if it used fire arrows would be fine too.

However, the problem still remains that unlike other ammunition, the fire arrow effects are not available as some sort of values that we can measure or adjust. The fact that the AI uses them so frequently vs. infantry tells me something is amiss...

Anyway, the point was that it IS possible to disable them.

[Gallicflair]

LMFAO you are freaks, and let me ask this, I am a history major and no where does it say that Fire Arrows were not used in that time frame so where do you come up with this crap?

Also I find that Fire Arrows have reduced damage in wet weather.

LOL, very clever. I don't recall the historians making too big a deal about the fact that they didn't use lubricated chickens either, so why weren't these included in the game also? :duel:

[The Stranger]

What's a history major - less than a colonel ?

yes less then a colonel but more then a captain

[Proletariat]

It is possible to eliminate the fire arrow special ability.


How do you plan to balance elephants? I can't imagine how cataphract elephants could be taken out without this otherwise somewhat cheesy tactic.

[The Stranger]

cut their hitpoints

[Red Harvest]

How do you plan to balance elephants? I can't imagine how cataphract elephants could be taken out without this otherwise somewhat cheesy tactic.

Don't really know. I haven't been facing them. I have found the other two types likely to rout for morale reasons. So I have not yet modded them.

[screwtype]

I come up with this "crap" by reading and studying the subjects. Anyway, fire arrows tended to be used more in sieges. Fixed settings with fairly specific purposes. Rather than every archer unit dragging pots of naptha around with them.

I suggest that the reason fire arrows were not used much if at all on the battlefield is that attaching some flaming material to your arrow would clearly have a marked effect on its range, accuracy and penetration.

Fire arrows would only be useful in sieges where you were trying to hit and set fire to a large flammable target like a siege engine. I've never read of fire arrows being used against troops on the open battlefield, and I regard them as simply another titillating addition for the swords and sorcery brigade.

[screwtype]

LOL, very clever. I don't recall the historians making too big a deal about the fact that they didn't use lubricated chickens either, so why weren't these included in the game also? :duel:

Now that you mention it, I bet there WERE plenty of units which tried to beat the enemy to death with lubricated chickens. It's just that the chickens were more perishable than other weapon types, which is why there's so little remaining evidence. :laugh4:

[Bromley]

How do you plan to balance elephants? I can't imagine how cataphract elephants could be taken out without this otherwise somewhat cheesy tactic.

I did some spurious calcs over here (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=21968&st=12) to figure out elephant unit sizes. The conclusion was that the number in the file should be reduced to 2 per unit, which translates to 4 at Large (when Romans have 80 units). That might help offset any problem with not being able to spook them so easily.

[Red Harvest]

I did some spurious calcs over here (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=21968&st=12) to figure out elephant unit sizes. The conclusion was that the number in the file should be reduced to 2 per unit, which translates to 4 at Large (when Romans have 80 units). That might help offset any problem with not being able to spook them so easily.

You won't want to cut them that far as they are not meant to scale quite so literally. They will have too much trouble with cav that way. Cutting them by half is not trivial. The forest elephants require some special massaging to cut the unit size. For instance to cut their number in half you need to leave the number of crew at 6, and cut the beasts to 3. Then you need to edit the mounts file so that the 2nd rider is positioned decently on the beast. (He is stuck in "standing" position so I stood him in fashion to make it look as if he was sitting on back.) If you go below 6 with the crew, the game won't load. This is hardcoded limit.

[Bromley]

Thanks. I found your original post on the subject when I was trying to figure it out a while ago :) .

What's the trouble with cav? Is it that the cavalry use their charge to kill enough to send them amok?

[The Stranger]

cavalry are bad vs eles you can better use phalanx or pilum/javelin infantry.

[Bromley]

I know ~:) . We're talking about modded elephant units that are only 1/2-1/3 of their current size.

[The Stranger]

oke, did it help or just remain the same

[HailMightCaeser]

I don;t know how accurate this was, but they sure looked cool in the beginning of gladiator.

[HailMightCaeser]

Oh and i forgot to say, "Archers Ignite" ~:cheers:

[Red Harvest]

Part of the problem is relative mass. The elephants are not sufficiently more massive than the cavalry. So the pachyderms get stuck in melee rather than maintaining their charge through the formation (slicing through it like butter as you know they would.) Unfortunately if you try to use very high mass values for the elephants (properly scaled to cav) then your elephants will kick field goals with the infantry (50 yards or more--very funny to watch.)

From what I can gather, some of the mount effects and/or defensive skill. don't seem to be incorporated in flank or rear attacks by the horsies. I've set mount effects for cav so negative before that even with charge they should have zero attack. Yet once I got into melee, medium cav could kill elephants, because they would surround them or hit them from side or rear.

Armour does carryover. But if you set armour too high, then no ranged unit will have any impact on them. It is almost a LOSE-LOSE system. It is very reminiscent of the problems with frontal charges into fully ordered phalanx units.

[Simetrical]

Unfortunately if you try to use very high mass values for the elephants (properly scaled to cav) then your elephants will kick field goals with the infantry (50 yards or more--very funny to watch.)That is pretty funny. But how about you just remove the "launching" attribute from the elephants? That should take care of your troubles. I suspect that even tossing a 300-pound object ten feet wouldn't be par for the course with elephants—if you could scale mass linearly, which you can't, and if mass were a function of strength, which it isn't, it would be rather like a typical adult human male casually tossing around a ten-pound weight. I expect that it would be fairly easy for an adult Asian elephant to pick up an armored man, yet difficult to throw one any significant distance, but I'm just guessing here.

-Simetrical

[Bromley]

Thanks Red. As I don't think you can change the collision mass of non-infantry in the e_d_u, I take it that happens elsewhere. I suppose the two possible fixes are Simetrical's launching or also increasing the infantry mass at the same time as the elephants'.

Bet that last option creates problems with cavalry getting bogged down in melee though, so it's probably no good.

[Bromley]

Answering my own question, but mount collision mass is, unsurprisingly, in descr_mount ~:) .