Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations

Rome Total War: "Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations Mod"

Version 6.4 - Creation Date: September 2, 2006, Release Date: September 2, 2006

The 6.0+ versions of the original project are not an open source, they are a freeware - you can use freely this whole file as you want for your personal usage only, any other than official releasing in public of this file or any part of it originally developed by me (doesnt matter if further unmodified or modified) is possible only after my written permission. However, the older versions of this project (up to version 5.0, including it) are further distributed under conditions of NTO.

Links to download version 6.4:
download from www.uploading.com


For more information go to the Total War Center, where is a subforum to this my mod in RTW Hosted Modifications, Mini-mods section (link).


Description and Using Rome Total War "Sinuhet's AI Battle Formations Mod"
This mod is a modification of the original file "descr_formations_ai.txt", which defines the way the AI creates formations of units in the battles. It was expanded and tweaked for a bit more challenging AI, with more ways of a creation of formations before and in the course of the battles. So don't be afraid of any irreversible damages of your game installation by implementing of this mod - you can simply remove it at any moment only by copy/paste of your original archived file.

This version is only for RTW 1.5 (vanilla and all RTW 1.5 - based mods). Dont use it with lower versions of RTW or with Barbarian Invasion Expansion pack. The usage for the modifications which has changed the factions and their respective units (the example of such a mod is RTR 6.0 Platinum Edition) is possible only after respective changes in the "supported_factions" flags - this is trivial, however, and should be possible to manage to do such changes for anybody with common sense. There are also available for download in the TWC the Customised Editions of my AI formations for RTR Platinum Edition and for Lusteds TE.

In this version there are no rectangle formations, so its usage is universal as for the Units Scale in Video options settings.

The main changes in 6.0+ versions are as follows:
1.) The quite new, originally developed system of "Small formations" - by means of it is possible to control the tactical AI behaviour during the all phases of battles in a more detailed manner, than by means of the new formations only. You can define by it the behaviour of small groups of units according to various criteria, including the factions and type and category of units. In fact, this is highly modular and customisable solution. In this point of view, the whole system is open to a lot of other modifications in future, according to your personal tastes. The values defined by me in this file are only one system of the possible ones, which has appeared to me to be optimally functioning with vanilla and SPQR 6.0 modification. However, it can be the matter of personal preferences and various needs of your modifications and your gameplay style and the possibilities are plentiful. Here is only necessary to mention the fact, that this is also very powerful tool, which is able to change totally the whole balance in battles, and not all changes are improving the behaviour of the AI - so you experiment and test the respective new settings of yours.

2.) This version of my mod is the first "descr_formations_ai.txt" file modification at all publicly released till this time, which is using extensively possibilities of the "default_melee_state" flag. For the info on all possible values, I will write the post in the above-mentioned subforum. This is the second key change in this version, which is the clear priority. Any other mod or the CA in vanilla has not implemented in the settings of this flag so much possibilities. It is the other way, which allow more appropriate control of the behaviour of each unit during the battles according to developer's wishes.

3.) This version is the first one of mine, which is using extensively the settings for various factions via the "supported_factions" flag, originally used in the CA file in the BI expansion pack. I must clearly state here, that the first one who used this flag also in RTW 1.5 was Darth Vader in his modifications from this year. So in this direction he has the clear priority.

4.) I have developed also several new "big formations", but the main changes are made in functionality of the whole system. This is also one of the reasons, why I want to prevent the distribution only parts of modified file, because the important is function of things in the right context of the whole.

5.) I have done in this version the beta testing alone - I had have to spent a lot of time with debugging and tweaking the all new things, and the result are rock-stable formations, simple on the first sight but very powerful in battles and highly expandable and controllable as for the future development.

The changes in minor version 6.1:
- tweaked the system of small formations, introduced more levels of the AI priority for formations and improved the behaviour of a light cavalry – it is main unit for the pursuing now and it attacks when the heavy cavalry is in lower numbers, otherwise the main attacking cavalry unit is heavy cavalry (if it is in sufficient numbers)
- changed settings for the phalanx units – they are in defend/guard mode also in attack now to improve holding of the line and to prevent frequent distractions from formations
- for a bit better “cosmetic” effect implemented for all cavalry units the setting for preventing to be in wedge when they are grouped in “big formations”
- tweaked behaviour of heavy cavalry in the formation for 1-7 phalanges with small numbers of regular infantry units for Macedon, Seleucid and Egypt (“Philip of Macedon” formation)

The changes in minor version 6.2:
- the whole system of small formations and settings of the default_melee_state flag for the "regular" infantry (i.e. light and heavy infantry) tweaked to be more aggressive, redone also system for non_phalanx spearmen, together these changes are fixing the reported issues with infantry units "criss-crossing" and "going back and front" of infantry units in front of the enemy (Human Player) line. Infantry has now behaviour very similar to the one from the my AI formations version 5.0
- changed settings for the regular cavalry units – they are more aggressive now and in small formations they have also during defending instead of defend/guard mode the "attacking" feature engage_at_will, this shifted the balance between horse archers and regular cavalry more in favour of the regular ones, the battles with mix of the regular and horse archer cavalry are now more balanced and for the battles with presumably or only regular cavalry are now more epic
- further tweaked behaviour of light cavalry as the main pursuing unit
- Romans have now quite independent system of "their own" formations for infantry, the same is valid partially for Barbarians witch allows to have for them to some extent a bit more aggressive infantry compared to the civilised factions

The changes in minor version 6.3:
- other minor tweaks and mainly fixed (for the respective formations) the annoying marching of the whole AI army to the right corner from the perspective of Human Player

The changes in minor version 6.4:
- redefined spearmen units totally, phalanx units let as they were, but I have defined newly more "aggressive" settings for the non_phalanx spearmen units of respective factions, i.e. shortly said, the system for spearmen is redone with reducing the defend/guard mode for the non_phalanx spearmen, this is on the cost of the “holding line”, however the distraction from line during approaching to the enemy army is relatively small further
- defined 3 new formations for the mixed armies of spearmen (several phalanges + several non_spear in one army), for civilised factions only (Greece, Carthage, …, however not e.g. Germans with phalanges in vanilla)
- redefined some settings in the small formations section, mainly accented the skirmish feature of units and more aggressive behaviour of regular infantry of Barbarians


Credits:
I am grateful to Screeching Elephant Hurler from forums.totalwar.org for his original “The AI formation selection algorithm” for the RTW 1.2.
I am also grateful to lt1956 (a creator of SPQR mod) for his positive attitude towards the version 2.00 of this my AI formations mod, which gave me a necessary motivation for a future development of this mod. Our cooperation on the development of the tailored versions of this mod for the new formations in SPQR 4.0+, SPQR 5.0 and SPQR 6.0 mods gave me other necessary impulses for further improvements.
I would like to thank here also to all people from TWC, which gave me some feedback about some features or bugs (e.g. stalin, jegui, MarshallQin, repman and several others, to mention the ones, which gave me some important info during debugging or impulses etc.).
I am also grateful to Darth Vader (despite of all things, which are dividing us) - I give him by this way the credits for his implementation of the "supported_factions" flag in RTW 1.5. And I am also glad that I have so able competitor - this competition of ours (hidden or declared, it doesnt matter) gave me necessary drive for further development, to limit his current dominance as for the popularity of our AI formations mods. This version of my mod is other trial to surpass him in good sense of the words.


Installation Instructions:
1. Archive original file "descr_formations_ai.txt" from folder <root folder of your RTW or its mod installation>/Data/, (for example C:/Activision/Rome Total War/Data/).
2. Copy and paste the modified file included in the archive file with this readme.
3. If you will want to uninstall this software, simply copy and paste your original archived file "descr_formations_ai.txt".
4. You may feel free to modify this file for your personal use, but be careful because also minor changes and "typos" may cause an unpredictable and instable behaviour of the whole installation of the game.

Good stuff! Any screens of the new formations in use?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Myrddraal

Good stuff! Any screens of the new formations in use?

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Ave Myrddraal!

Thank you for a welcome....

This AI formations are so unique in their new features they have introduced, that I am talking they are the first ones from the 3rd generation. No other formations till this time have been directed to the improving your gameplay experience by the way that they are not only changing the setting of the units to groups in the beginning during deployment or few times during battles during reformations, but also by defining in some way the tactical behaviour of units according to their type and category and this with impact during each moment of the battle. So to send some new "static" setting for some concrete group of units (the so called new "big" formations) would not say nothing about the main feature of this new my AI formations. You must try it yourself in several battles and you will probably say that they are giving you some quite new experince as for the function of the units on the battlefield.

This feature is best implemented for Cavalry units in this stage of development (Light cavalry will tend to be the main pursuing unit, Missile cavalry will be for the historically appropriate factions the one who rules the all battlefield and Heavy cavalry is atacking in groups now more frequently). As for the behaviour of the infantry I am doing some tweaks right now, so there will be some change in their behaviour in near future, I am going to release it in the new minor version (i.e. in version 6.2).

Now I can send you for the promotion of the version 6.1 this picture only:

https://img201.imageshack.us/img201/...hianul0.th.jpg

with this commnetary:
"These guys are everywhere on the battlefield now and they will kick your .... almost always....."

Bye Sinuhet

For people who are interested in this my work, I let also here in org the info that there are available to download the Customised Editions of my AI formations for these popular mods:

"Rome Total Realism Platinum Edition" (based on version 6.4 of my AI formations) - link to official release in TWC

and

Lusted's "Terrae Expugnandae" (based on version 6.3 of my AI formations) - link to official release in TWC