Is Darth's formation pack compatible with EB? I read it makes life a lot harder on battlemap and i wish to try but as addicted as i am to EB i can't unistall it! Are you going too to make some adjustament to AI controlled army in next versions?
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Is Darth's formation pack compatible with EB? I read it makes life a lot harder on battlemap and i wish to try but as addicted as i am to EB i can't unistall it! Are you going too to make some adjustament to AI controlled army in next versions?
i second this notion...or i'm a military genius, or the AI as became increasingly easy to beat? they sometimes charge right into the front of my triarii and heavy units...the AI doesn't maneuver...and only rarely tries to ambush my troops and use the battlefield to outflank my armies, wich is good because i have the unit banners turned off, so sometimes they are really able to past slip my view and position some of its units on my rear...and that sometimes causes me distress, but not much...
@demivrgvs u sugest that you turn the unit banners off, will see it becomes a little dificult for you to keep track of every enemie unit, making battles more fun and intersting...after all a general couldn't see everything at all times, and sometimes things sliped and that often changed the battle....
Turn off banners? You mean using only General's view? I'll make a try...
Anyway on forums i see a lot of people who says AI became very strong with Darth's formation pack and i would really appreciate a tought challange rather than winning 99,9% of the time without difficulty...
Turning off banners is done in Preferences.txt . There is a line that says something like:
SHOW_BANNERS=TRUE
Change the true to false, and the banners will no longer appear.
The latests versions of Darth Formations are for 1.5 and not compatible. However, DF 8.0 or 8.5 should work with 1.2. However, don't expect too much of it. There is only so much you can do by changing the formations.
EB 0.8 was designed for Vanilla 1.5 wasn't it? So I think it shouldn't be too much of a problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ludens
Yes, but the newest formation sets are faction-specific, and since EB has juggled around the factions they will end up with the wrong formations. It should be quite easy to adapt them, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios
BTW, has anyone tried Sinuhet's latests formations to see how they compare with Darth's? I understand Sinuhet added some quite nifty new features.
Played a few battles using his formations for RTRPE. The default_melee_state flags definitely help, but don't expect anything revolutionary.
In any case, one of my test custom battles was with me playing the Romans against the Sauromatae and I was completely annihilated....on Medium difficulty. That was a first.
That's good to hear, but how does it compare to Darth's latests formations?Quote:
Originally Posted by BozosLiveHere
A bit better? Can't say for sure. I was playing with Darth's Formations 16 before though.
Thanks for info. I'll keep it in mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by BozosLiveHere
i understand what is darth formations about but i wan u know what is darth mod. I need darth formation 16 where to download. And also will any version wrk on all modes without any trouble.
Not all versions of Darth Formations will work with everything. Some will only work with BI or verion 1.5 and others with V1.2Quote:
Originally Posted by anandsekarn70
Darth Mod is Darth's total conversion of BI/RTW. It changes the entire campaign, and is not compatible with other mods.
Thx. Can u plz say what is the last version for darth formations and what wrk for rtw 1.2, 1.5, bi, alexander, and some other mods such as spqr, te, eb etc and where to download. I see only darth formation 8 or something like that but there is v.16. Darth mod last versn is 8 with a patch right. Does it uses same time period as rtw & same factions. Plz guide me. I searched all forums for df 16.
DarthMod is a full modification of R:TW: it changes units, statistics, formations, etc. Darth Formations merely change the formation files. The latest formations files are Darth Dark Formations 16.0; but these probably won't work with EB. Maybe the old 8.5 Darth formations (not to be confused with the Darth Mod 8.0) may work. These are also the formations you should use for R:TW 1.2. For R:TW 1.5, BI and other mods you should use the Darth Dark formations 16.0. AFAIK there are no formations for Alexander. All his formation files can be found in Darth's TWC forum.
Just thought I would point out that they probably wont work with EB correctly, because the Roman slot that Darth uses will force Seleucids, Bactria and Pontus to deploy in Roman Formations, and the Romans to deploy in Greek formations.
This was only implemented in his last few formation sets. The old 8.5 formations don't have this problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by CountArach
TE already uses DarthsFormations mod in it.Quote:
other mods such as spqr, te, eb etc
Would the 8.5 darth formations work with RTW 1.3 and BI 1.4??
sorry, double post...
IIRC I got them to work with 1.3, and I suppose they should also work with 1.4, but why bother? I don't see any reason to prefer 1.3/1.4 over 1.5/1.6, and if you have those you might as well use Darth Formations 16.0.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seedexodus
Hmm..yeah I suppose so... but while I'm waiting for my new dsl connection, I'm stuck with just the 1.3 version of RTW. I won't be able to patch up anytime soon. BTW, how did you make them work, and where do they appear in the battlefield ui?
By simply installing them. You won't see any change to the game, it is just that the formations the computer uses are different.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seedexodus
All right then thanks. It's a bummer though that a human can't use them...
Humans? I thought they'd deploy their troops themselves rather than having their CPU doing it for them...
Anyway, you can, of course, deploy your troops pretty much to whatever you like, and, as long as you don't muck about with custom formations and don't disrupt them yourself, these formations will remain quite intact too.
(Provided that they aren't eaten alive, but hey: then the human did something all wrong.)
Seriously, this is a very popular modification. I dont understand why EB does not try the best it can to implement some of these AI enhancements to its own mod. Afterall, you guys try to achieve realism, and effective use of formation by the AI beats the financial aid we give them, in terms of realism.
Why would you say that?Quote:
Seriously, this is a very popular modification. I dont understand why EB does not try the best it can to implement some of these AI enhancements to its own mod.
Did any of the DarthMod fans actually tested it against what we have in EB? Because we have, and we can tell you for certain - it's not THAT good as everyone's talking about.
Do you think we're not doing our best? Do you think we can't think of AI improvements on our own? Or that, if we see something is useful and better what we have, we don't do something about it? Do you really have so little faith in the team?
The only new thing we got from Darth so far are the new unit flags discoveries, and even they provide only slight improvement over what we already had.
Contrary to some mods, EB is not a compilation of things done by others, and we strive for it to remain so, unless something strikes us as a really useful upgrade. Darth Mod is not one of these things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eadingas
What i am saying, is that even the slightest improvement to the AI, is to be prefered over the "financial bonus" sollution to the poor AI. I posted this because in my opinion some posters here seemed to have a rather uncompromising opinion on the darth-mod, while in fact on could say it is progressing in a particular field where EB is encountering some difficulties.
Stating that the improvements are "not that good" does not seem like a very strong argument. especially since the AI is the only aspect of EB where reasonable realism has not been achieved.
Am i dellerious? i might, just tell me and i'll be on my way.
and by the way, i wouldnt dare question the efforts of the EB team. It is not a coincidence i stoped playing RTR ;)
The "finiancial bonus" solution only effects the campaign Ai, but you were talking about the battlefield Ai. You shouldn't confuse the two.Quote:
Originally Posted by Djurre
We don't use Darth's Mod, because we have our own specifications. We will implement our own historical formations (though not for 0.8) and whilst we use research on unit stats that has been collected by the community, we use that to our own designs to represent the historical units upon the battlefield.
We do have our own team-members who are able to work on this, you know?
Foot
A more effective battlefield ai, would need less financial support. there is a connection right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Foot
Howeer, i seem to have offended some people, so i'll give it a rest. Though i would like to point out that constant compliments from your fan base will not help you forward, and critisism does. Thank you for your explenation Foot, i was not aware that you had similair plans.
Nobody criticizes EB more harshly and more thoroughly than the members themselves :P
From my tests, it appears all these AI mods are like the Emperor's new clothes.
Some of the AI behaviour is indeed more satisfactory, but the advances which we can make in this field are very limited - they are more attempts to 'prod' the AI to make certain kinds of decisions we would like them to make.
The AI is unchanged.
If we put a name to our own AI enhancements, I'm sure people would've paid note to their effects. Since we didn't mention any such enhancements, we thought they were negligible at BEST - people assumed they did not exist - and expectations carried forward in that vein. It's similar to the Placebo effect in medicine, you expect something, and so your senses are on high alert expecting just such a thing - magnifying your sensory perceptions, thus exaggerating the experience. It's a form of self-delusion.
The Emperor's New Clothes..
The difference is that we haven't said we have any clothes in the first place.
We're all "naked" to different degrees, with regard to these AI enhancements.
Point taken. Lets hope that the AI in MTW2 is less disapointing.
btw: consider a career in social psychology, this is classic sp stuff ;)
I tried to play around with the formations text once, and then I realized I didn't want to waste my time. So I downloaded Darth and took some of his formations and put them up against Sinuhets. Darth's won everytime (except once). Darth's also beat the vanilla AI.
That was awhile back, and I'm sure formations have changed since then.
Will EB 0.8 include any formation changes over vanilla? I thought 1.2 did...
No new formation changes have been added to the 0.8. Well, not yet, at least.
What are these eadingas? Seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by eadingas
The missile stats flags. Don't remember exactly what these are doing. Tk has been testing them and said there are some slight improvements, so we might be using them.
Ok. I thought you were referring to some of our rebel subfaction flags or something.
I could not help myself and reply to this ....
Although I seldomly come here to notice posts etc.
You have managed (EB team) to create an unfinished mod all these years by massing a lot of fans to post for you.
Post previews, previews, open -betas etc.
Then I have repeatedly noticed a lot of your members disregarding my work I have made for gameplay all this time in a FINISHED (DarthMod), UNBUGGED full mod in which you can play with many new units, into many campaigns, in both RTW-BI and actually finish them without posting to a forum about problems.
In the meantime you evolve, evolve.....
I am pretty certain you will partially finish when R2TW comes out and you pass to the next engine etc.
I always also post my findings and have helped the community a lot to improve the gameplay of RTW and I do not keep secret forums and teams working in the background and state....I know things.... you don't.
Then despite the mediocrity of the gameplay of your mod which is of course full of graphics and eye-kandy things to charm the little boys out there, you repeatedly do not hear (and I mean it) most of their claims and you progress like a turtle to your...goal which as it seems it is too far away.
Then, in a cunning manner you talk about my AI modding to be a...placebo effect? Who are you MR.Shigawire and what have you offered and can offer for this game?As an entity of course.
I suggest EB team you read my tutorials to learn something or else just continue to use 3dStudio to produce your graphics but when there are brains involved you can claim you have placebo products yourself.
I hope the general attitude is not from all the EB team and for example I remember Khelvan was a listening and able guy.
But as they say...
when many roosters are gathering...too late comes the morning.
Good luck implementing my fire delay and charge stats findings in your mod and of course using my tutorial for formation modding.
This is open source modding friends ...not secrets of the luftwaffe!
PS.
Also for the smaller in age and as it seems ignorrant fellows, AI in gaming is a far more complicated thing than a code in C++. If you read some books (I have by the way) you will see general AI is affected by even minor things such as animations, stats etc.
So when someone claims he fixes the AI he does not only fix a code for node following....
Wow, hostile much?!
We've never said we don't or won't use your work, we've only said that we won't use your Darth Mod (which makes sense as that is all stat work for your own mod). I think some fans here don't understand that your Ai changes are only changes to stats and formations, not some code that we could plug directly into the build.
Whenever you post new discoveries we always link to them and tell our stats guy to check out and test, for our own purposes, your new revalation.
I'm sorry that you find our gameplay mediocre, I assume you mean in regards to the battlefield Ai (you couldn't possibly maintain that our trait system was mediocre, even if you didn't like it). Obviously we can't please everyone, and we wouldn't want to either.
Define "a lot", because I don't know of any.Quote:
Then I have repeatedly noticed a lot of your members disregarding my work I have made for gameplay all this time in a FINISHED (DarthMod), UNBUGGED full mod in which you can play with many new units, into many campaigns, in both RTW-BI and actually finish them without posting to a forum about problems.
To finish, whilst your civil though scathing post seems slightly over the top, especially considering your apparent lack of understanding as regards our stats work (we really do work on them), I have nothing but respect for your mod and your work. I'm sorry if comments further up the page have caused harm in someway, I personally wouldn't have agreed with them, and I doubt many of the team would have either.
Foot
Quote:
Did any of the DarthMod fans actually tested it against what we have in EB? Because we have, and we can tell you for certain - it's not THAT good as everyone's talking about.
Quote:
Contrary to some mods, EB is not a compilation of things done by others, and we strive for it to remain so, unless something strikes us as a really useful upgrade. Darth Mod is not one of these things.
Quote:
From my tests, it appears all these AI mods are like the Emperor's new clothes.
Some of the AI behaviour is indeed more satisfactory, but the advances which we can make in this field are very limited - they are more attempts to 'prod' the AI to make certain kinds of decisions we would like them to make.
The AI is unchanged.
If we put a name to our own AI enhancements, I'm sure people would've paid note to their effects. Since we didn't mention any such enhancements, we thought they were negligible at BEST - people assumed they did not exist - and expectations carried forward in that vein. It's similar to the Placebo effect in medicine, you expect something, and so your senses are on high alert expecting just such a thing - magnifying your sensory perceptions, thus exaggerating the experience. It's a form of self-delusion.
The Emperor's New Clothes..
The difference is that we haven't said we have any clothes in the first place.
We're all "naked" to different degrees, with regard to these AI enhancements.
These are quotes only in this thread.
I will not travel to other threads to find others I had seen bad temper against my findings.
I am sorry I use harsh words.
I know and stated that since you are a big team not all of you deserve my words I said.
I believe that EB gameplay is mediocre in the battlefield..yes my opinion bcs it seems that your team's stuborness not to use proved findings of other's and lose time by trying to invent new ones with not putting the effort needed..you produce finally mediocre results.
It is one of the concepts of Hacking and Internet community.
You never lose time to re-invent some other's invention. You evolve from the base of verified findings.
I am the first to use these ideas of Ai and general gameplay but imagine me to try to implement your verified trait system from the start...wouldn't that be a sillyness?
Also I am certain that if some of your team actually download my full mod DarthMod_8.1 with the new formations 16.2 .....and play it....you will witness what I assert.
Of course your mod aims for historical accuracy and is gigantic in concept...but I cannot understand why the final product should be so mediocre when it could be and has the potential to be 200% better.
I use same words for CA because they fix such a wonderful game engine and produce such mediocre gameplay ignoring simple and logical enhancements that could tremendoulsy boost it.
anyways....
Since some of your teammates have stated something for me, I had to reply and I am sorry again to use harsh words.
But in the end I speak directly and not sideways...
I too have noticed that EB tends to 'reinvent the wheel' instead of building on (and improving) the progress made by others...
Quote:
Originally Posted by DARTH_VADER
No.Quote:
--
These are quotes only in this thread.
I will not travel to other threads to find others I had seen bad temper against my findings.
I am sorry I use harsh words.
I know and stated that since you are a big team not all of you deserve my words I said.
I believe that EB gameplay is mediocre in the battlefield..yes my opinion bcs it seems that your team's stuborness not to use proved findings of other's and lose time by trying to invent new ones with not putting the effort needed..you produce finally mediocre results.
It is one of the concepts of Hacking and Internet community.
You never lose time to re-invent some other's invention. You evolve from the base of verified findings.--
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by mcantu
You undermine your argument against EB by the numerous derisive comments and references to EB's "graphics and eye-kandy things to charm the little boys out there", "you will partially finish when R2TW comes out", "in a FINISHED (DarthMod), UNBUGGED full mod in which you can play with many new units, into many campaigns".
You have a disagreement with our formations and stats, and that is clearly your strength. Keep your focus on that and don't try to compare our mods in these other areas. That's my advice, whether it's desired or not.
@mcantu and those others who don't seem to understand that things aren't that simple
Perhaps.
But you've got to keep in mind that EB is truly massive. This weight can cause unexpected errors and difficulties while trying to implement the work of others.
It has happened to me quite often that when writing some code for a program on my TI 84+ that I wanted to include certain features, and when I did include them the program all of a sudden stopped behaving normally. After editing out the new features, and developing it regarding other aspects the program would become stable once again and sometimes it would then be possible to include that particular troublesome feature - somehow the changes made to the build enabled this for no apparent reason (after a while I would find out that it was due to some specific order in the code or some vars which hadn't been properly taken care of by the program, or some standard OS thingy I wasn't previously aware of, or some such thing...).
To make my point. Due to the fact that EB is such a massive mod, that it has some very particular traits of it's own, that it is something that has gradually evolved over time and therfore isn't the most clearly structured build (I read someone - wasn't it, you, Foot? - talking about cleaning up the various .txt files), and that it, because of all the previously mentioned things, has it's own specific problems related to how the engine handles the modifications: you can't just expect them to include things made by others, even if those are about completely different issues - RTW might simply not chew such combo's as long as they're not directly made to be compatible with each other. (Like the Darth's AI, which for as far as I know needs extensive tweaking too make it compatible with EB: think of all the special unit's that are in EB but nowhere else for example.) That might be a very good explanation why the EB team first doesn't include certain features, and then develops the same thing itself.
Teleklos, Darth Vader has already apologized for his harsh words. I can understand Shigawire's frustration at EB's efforts not being recognized, but that is no reason to dismiss Darth's efforts.
There are two fundamental issues here.
First of all, formations are down in the noise level when it comes to focus areas for this mod. There are other, far more critical issues that have to be fixed and tweaked first, and consequently they garner the lion's share of the mod's resources. And no Darth, we aren't "evolving, evolving" - if you had bothered to follow our progress, you'd realize that v1.5 destroyed the core EB engine (building-based recruitment) and we've been "rebuilding, rebuilding". Please restrict your comments to things you KNOW, and leave insults and assumptions to the "little boys".
Secondly, we are working with and testing the discoveries of others (including Darth), but so far there hasn't been a verifiable, quantum leap forward from using the formation data. Personally I suspect that much of that is because we did a damn good job of getting the individual unit stats "right" at the beginning, and consequently the improvements are less noticeable than those achieved by applying the Darth Mod to vanilla RTW. But even if the improvements are small, we will still use those which are best and most appropriate. We do NOT have a problem using the work of others. EB would not exist were it not for the discoveries of untold numbers of other modders who gladly shared their work with the community (as do we, all the time.)
Ludens, I did not dismiss his efforts. What are you talking about? I have not said anything about his mod or his efforts. I was quite plain with my statements. He has a beef with our formations and stats (which I said was his strength even), so he will help his argument much more if he directs his complaints at those areas. That is all I said. I did not dismiss him at all, I just said he undermines his argument when he voices those other negative and unrelated opinions along with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ludens
I have no problem to accept harsh words also from other EB members who find my sincere statement accusing. In fact I had the right to speak for myself after reading the above mentioned undermining posts and especially the ironic of Shigawire.
I do understand and know that it is a very valiant effort to create a mod such as EB. I do understand that the patches cancelled all your previous work and you had to re-built....
But how much by the way...you are still in patch 1.2 ..an obsolete version of RTW...how much work did it need to re-fix?
I had this problem and alone I instantly and effectively found ways to modify my mod from 1.2 to 1.5/1.6 version for both BI and RTW.
A mod that is 1.7 GB uncompressed full of new graphics and sprites etc.
Ok maybe your mod again is too different, maybe it is too different from all mods.
I will give you an example of RTR which is still in 1.2 and maybe it struggles to finish prior to M2tw (and probably I will help them in their finalizing actions)
And what happened...an eager team who wanted to transport RTR to 1.5 version finally has made it and made it playable all this time with RTR PE also with my contribution with my formations.
Very much sooner than the core team of RTR.
What I am saying is ...if your 100 man team had used their time more effectively than to post and advertise and maybe undermining other mods such as mine you could still had finished.
And finally this last thing goes not only to you but to a lot of other mod teams with terribly unfinished products finally abandoned in the end and still managing to captivate some fellows to try and download their beta-work.
For me from all the mods that are in the market right now only 5-6 are trully worthy of investing time to play since all others are demanding to be de-bugged by the players.
Ok I put also a special sacred category for EB, RTR which are in a different position.
My comments weren't directed solely to Darthmod. If you look closely in my post, you will see that I did not mention the word "Darth" even once in that post. I might as well be bashing EB, the mod I'm a part of.. But posting in a thread called "Darth's AI" I can understand why it would feel like that.
My own comments, which do not necessarily reflect EB, but my own personal views, was a general observation about ALL mods that attempt to change the AI behaviour, including our own.
I believe we humans often fool ourselves with respect to many things, self-deceit is a very important and often overlooked factor.
I too have nothing but respect for the work Darth have done. Darth have often been the FIRST person to come up with these kinds of discoveries with the unit stats and formations. :2thumbsup:
But we time and time again see people who come in our forums and ask us why WE dont use Darth's AI mod. Everything would be so much better with it. Don't you think we have tried a number of mods?
Darth's AI mod may be the most famous, and indeed matured, AI-mod out there. But has it EVER occured to people that this one AI-mod may be right for some mods, and not right for others? It's not like there's this one thing which will work perfectly with everything else. Everything is relative. Sometimes you need to adapt to the peculiarities.
Anyhow, Darth is right, I'm not the one qualified to say this, since this kind of modding is not my field. The fact is, the people who work on this field in EB have not given reasons for not adopting Darth's AI, but they have asked to be given reasons for it.
Quite basically 1.5 does not allow you to use building conditionals in unit recruitment lines, so we could no longer limit unit recruitment by government type (as we had before). Everything we had worked on for 0.7.4 regarding units had to be scrapped, and we had to devise a new method of limiting recruitment by province as well as by government type.Quote:
Originally Posted by DARTH_VADER
In addition releasing previews has never held us back from our work, instead it focuses our work so that we produce more. All that appears in our previews appears in the game in some form.
Basically you can barely grasp the complexity of what we are trying to do here, so stop infering from false premises.
Foot
Also, we have a 5MB campaign script and 5MB traits file, in which any missing comma can mean a CTD at some point that we have to look for and fix. And porting to 1.5 means a -lot- of missing commas.
No, it's not something you can work on overnight.
Mediocre, half-assed, shameless self-advertisers, inefective, 100-man team, underminers of other mods, struggling, terribly unfinished, bug-ridden, stubborn, reinventors of the wheel, unenthusiatic...
People, why are we making excuses for ourselves or even talking to this guy? For christ sake, you may be talented, but you sir are an idiot.
Wow. Certainly my point above was ignored. Darth did something that a lot of people enjoy in an important area of the game, but he just can't help from posting this sort of trash. Good job exposing your real motivations. Any third parties wanting to take note of a mod creator (an "eponymous" one at that :grin:) blaming us for undermining his mod by advertising our own can marvel at that statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by DARTH VADER
No offence meant, but...
A whole page simply wasted on some bickering of some modders...
:idea2:
Summarised thread in Q and A format below:
-Will EB include the work on AI made by Darth Vader?
No.
-Why not?
It appears that this work: a) doesn't have too much of an noticeable effect in EB battles due to some specific EB related things, like the stats, and b) isn't all that compatible, and c) the EB doesn't want to spend time on implementing Darth Mod when they can spend it on making a stable 0.8 build - for now at least. Foot mentioned EB team members working on improving AI and eadingas mentioned some of the features discovered by Darth which might be included in EB. However, there are no results of this to be expected from this prior to EB 0.8, it's only a project that might take shape in the future. Still, this is no Darth formations, this will be an EB thingy based on the work of both Darth Vader and the team member's themselves.
This package originally featured an argument which had nothing to do with the actual topic, and therefore this was edited out during summarising this thread.
Now, what about this: :focus: ?
Thanks for your clearness of mind Tellos Athenaios. You boiled down what we meant and have said, better than we ourselves could do.
After Tellos Athenaios's excellent post, I'd still like to try and tie a couple of loose ends.
I might add that the bulk of the 5MB of script had also to be redone thanks to the aforementioned collapse of our government and recruitment system. That is, over 1,3*10^5 lines of script down the drain. The edb.txt, which contained, I dunno, some 6MB of data, was almost solely used for recruitment and governments, with some hundreds of lines of other buildings.Quote:
Originally Posted by eadingas
But it is part of my field of modding, which was unfortunately overtaken by scripting. So no, "eye-kandy" has never been placed over gameplay, but the fundamental basics of our mod's mechanics. Still, Shiga's correct in his post, but that doesn't mean that we've disregarded Darth's work. Reading his tutorials, and having looked at a couple of previous Darth's formations, I've noted his "triplet" method. I've also noted some parallels between the evolution of EB formations and Darth's equivalents - "dublets" were introduced in both at the same time, with both formation modifications being of equivalent quality. That was around EB 0.6 and its early incarnations. Since then EB formations haven't been receiving as much attention as they should have. I'll be the first to admit that, and if anyone wants to use Darth's formations in EB, there's nothing to stop you. Nevertheless, we won't be copying Darth's formations into our build, which seems to be what one of the things Darth is advocating. Ironically, copying the material of other mods can also be seen as undermining a mod.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shigawire
As Foot has said, Darth doesn't have a clue on what he's saying of EB. He hasn't even tried the mod; he *believes* our battlefield gameplay to be mediocre. That it might very well be - it's RTW for Christ's sake - but that doesn't justify dismissing our efforts of pushing the engine's limits at every turn, even if one has made a mod that outperforms ours on one front. His argument could have been slightly less unplausible if he'd actually compared the mods by playing them.
Agreed. First he puts forth an argument that we're disregarding him, so we're forced to respond, and then proceeds with what can be best described as "trolling". Responding to Shigawire's still somewhat innocent post is understandable, but all this? I don't clearly recall how my previous reply, and the only one to Darth, went, but I think it was along the lines of "No."Quote:
Mediocre, half-assed, shameless self-advertisers, inefective, 100-man team, underminers of other mods, struggling, terribly unfinished, bug-ridden, stubborn, reinventors of the wheel, unenthusiatic...
People, why are we making excuses for ourselves or even talking to this guy? For christ sake, you may be talented, but you sir are an idiot.
I'm not sure if I managed to actually tie loose ends, or if I just opened a couple of knots, but after Tellos Athenaios's post, this thread has quite adequately had its conclusion, not to mention outliving its usefullness a few posts earlier.
I am happy to see that you as a team accept and agree in postings which term me ...an idiot.
Because this concludes my first stated assumptions, and also adds a new conclusion.
You cannot accept criticism even if it is thoroughly explained...I know it is frightening but it is that which makes someone stronger and better.
And a brief summarization:
-I do not want to press you to use my formations and AI findings, copy them or whatever. It doesn't matter to me.
-I want you to stop indirectly to undermine them.
-I do not come here to make you lessons of modding so I do not want to hear about the true reasons of your delay. I know very well how difficult is to code especially if you do it with only notepad as I do, and seriously I believe you have a lot of able modders in your team.
-I just state the logical assumption that despite any of those difficulties, they should have been overcomed concerning the time that has passed and the people involved in your mod. If you see it alligorically, you just cannot keep the deadlines and if this was transferred in a business....it would have failed. But after all it is a non-paying job and since I will be retiring for this reason for a long time, I hope you do keep the slow but steady pace of modding.
I as a person like to finish my obligations quickly end effectively and make decisions that may cancel some of my previous holdings. So this is why in the first place I criticise you about your tempo and I cannot and should not force you for the different. I just disagree in this as a way of life.
But if you do respect me as some of you say and I believe, please stop treating me with the temper you have shown so far.
Here ya go:
Quote:
con·de·scend (knd-snd) Pronunciation Key
intr.v. con·de·scend·ed, con·de·scend·ing, con·de·scends
To descend to the level of one considered inferior; lower oneself. See Synonyms at stoop1.
To deal with people in a patronizingly superior manner.
Quote:
self-right·eous (slfrchs)
adj.
Piously sure of one's own righteousness; moralistic.
Exhibiting pious self-assurance: self-righteous remarks.
self-righteous·ly adv.
self-righteous·ness n.
just to say:
Im not a fanboy, im not a follower teased by the previews (I just look at those 1 time and then forget), im not a stupid man following EB announcements and forgetting how other mods are "cool" and have enhanced the gameplay and colorfull graphics, and AI tricks.
i just play EB because i like it. So I think it is very "poor" by you addressing the EB base users as a mass of people who are joked by the EB team.
From my part (im not an EB member), i say turn back on your mod and dont bother here, and the next time address directly the person who have offended you and dont address a "generic" EB followers base.
Darth, I see a lot of criticism but nothing constructive.
Allow me to summarize:
- Certain EB team members state that your mod is not as effective as the fans seem to think it is, based on their testing.
- You react to at least one of their words being overly critical or overly insulting, I'm not sure which.
- You come here and do nothing but claim that EB is mediocre, EB should have done certain things but did not, EB should have completed things and did not, compared to your own time frames.
- You state we cannot take criticism.
I see this as the height of hypocrisy. Basically, team members criticized your mod, and you couldn't take it, the very thing you accuse us of doing as a team.
I suggest the following:
- First, try creating a total conversion. Or, at least, try playing ours. The reason you are able to so quickly adjust your mod and release new verisons is because the work that goes into it is at least one factorial less complex than any total conversion, which includes work on all the areas which you cover plus many, many more. You lack the perspective necessary to crticize our work or our timeframes. You haven't even played the mod, much less be able to understand how to make it. So your "criticism" here is nothing more than an attempt to insult our mod and mod team based on wild speculation and ignorance. I don't mean that in an offensive way, I just mean that you should learn about the things you are speaking of before using them as a means to insult people.
- Please take your own advice. Don't come here upset and raving mad because some members of this mod team don't see your work as being as effective as non-modders who haven't played with the code do. As modders we evaluate and test and are able to understand the difference between perception and reality. Because some modders come to the conclusion that your mod is much less effective (notice no one ever called your mod worthless) based on tests than fans' perception does not mean anyone is purposely trying to insult or undermine your mod. As the saying goes, people in glass houses should not throw stones.
Now, we have had an internal discussion about the way people present their opinions about other mods or modders' work. I personally find some of the comments that some of our members have made recently, and not necessarily in this thread or about your mod, as disgusting. Our team members have to realize they represent us in what they say and do. I am trying to help them to learn this. However, what they have said which I term "disgusting" in the past pales in comparison to what you say above. I really can't comment more on that or I too will be drawn into throwing insults around.
- Try not to speak about what you don't understand. I realize this is similar to my first point, but it bears repeating. You don't understand why there were delays, you have no idea of the scope of our project and the problems we have faced, and you really have no idea of the makeup of our team and who is actually capable of solving the problems we've run into. You're making judgements based on no information, and a list of past contributors to the mod. You're also making wild assumptions about the business world, when as a businessperson I have to question how you could draw this sort of false conclusion. Finally, you generalize about all EB team members when you have dealt with one or two.
You also manage to insult not only the entire EB team, but also the entire EB fan base. In order to avoid this you really should stick to what you know, which is formations and stats. If you don't want an explanation as to what our problems were and delays were, and why we had to do what we did to overcome them, you shouldn't post such blatantly wrong assumptions about them.
I am personally happy that your mod has been so successful, and doubly happy that you have made tutorials that assist others in their efforts. Our own stats and formation work will no doubt benefit from this. I have tried your mod and I do see an improvement. I don't see it as effective as the fans do, but please understand that this is not meant as an insult. There is only so much anyone can do to affect the AI; RTW doesn't give us the tools to edit the battlefield or campaign AI, so we have to attack it in indirect ways.
This does not mean I am trying to undermine you. We constantly get questions about why we don't use your formations. The truthful answer, without malice, is that we see some benefit to some of the things you have done but cannot accept it carte blanche because 1) our testing shows that the perception of benefit is greater than the actual benefit and 2) our own stats, formations, and battlefield behavior is wildly different from yours.
I would like to assume that your accusations of EB being mediocre and so on and so forth are simply borne out of ignorance and not malice. That is, I would like to think it is due to a lack of understanding of what we do (since you haven't created a total conversion and you haven't actually played our mod) than it is out of a desire simply to be insulting. To that end I would like to offer you the opportunity to learn the basics of trait work, scripting, complex building systems and intricate recruitment systems; essentially all the things that your mod is not focused on, so that in the future perhaps you have a better understanding of who we are and what we do, and why there are delays. I am happy to assist with this, and if I can't answer some of your questions or teach you what you need to know I will find others who can. In this way I am sure you will learn that what you say above is quite simply wrong, and perhaps you will be able to improve your own mod through these discussions.
There is no doubt that by the Screen shots Darth mod has made improvements which would be foolish to leave out of EB. I have played his mod and the differences are indeed noticeble. EB is a bit weak in the battle section I must admit to this, and certainly needs improvement, battles are one of the hugest parts of RTW gameplay. I personally cant stand what the ai does in Phalanx to Phalanx battles.
You aren't listening Marcus. Darth's AI is certainly more mature than our's, but you can't just pour Darth's AI-jam in with EB's flour.. it's not that easy.. :smash: and EB's basic gameplay platform has totally different unit and formation behaviours in mind, which have shown to not be compatible with Darth's AI mod..
khelvan, I was expecting your answer.
Allow me to multi - quote your answer:
I doubt that testing, it is unquestionably better to yours which is 2 patches behind. So the perception is 2 generations behind.Quote:
- Certain EB team members state that your mod is not as effective as the fans seem to think it is, based on their testing.
I have quoted some in this thread and to a previous post. Especially the ironic of Shigawire claiming indirectly that my modifications are mostly a placebo effect..sorry Shigawire but you cannot convince me that you did not intent to target me when saying...all these AI-mods...I come here and speak directly to you all and you still cannot understand to who I am speaking.Quote:
- You react to at least one of their words being overly critical or overly insulting, I'm not sure which.
I admit I was using words of pain but I did not start this...maybe my mistake is I continue it.Quote:
- You come here and do nothing but claim that EB is mediocre, EB should have done certain things but did not, EB should have completed things and did not, compared to your own time frames.
That is a fact. After one sees for a while your forum especially in TWcenter, 50 % of posts are ...cheers, yay,OMG,how happy I am etc. ...and you reply to these with more intensity than those who criticise you and should listen.Quote:
- You state we cannot take criticism.
When I first received the first cheering OMG posts in my forum I asked politely not to post like this and preferably I demanded people to come and give me advises and mis-happens...this helped me enormously to quickly find errors and evolute.
Look at this for example:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...t=65175&page=2
Everybody is cheering for you and then comes a fellow named K_raso who thoroughly criticizes your preview..in minutes you eat him alive.
And I did not search much ...random finding....full of these fan of EB treatments. I never treat DarthMod fans like this. Who cares anyway...
Maybe that is true but I do not like the way of their criticism as you dont like mine that came afterwards. I from my side admit that I could have expressed myself in a more gentle way but due to my mood of nowadays and the words I heard for me I overreacted. Still I believe everything I have said. The polite way to say "mediocre" is as you say "is not as effective as the fans seem to think it is" ...still indifferent to me if you know how to read and understand temper behind words. Hypocricy is to try to show a different attitude than this you feel...I am direct. Always.Quote:
I see this as the height of hypocrisy. Basically, team members criticized your mod, and you couldn't take it, the very thing you accuse us of doing as a team.
Allow me to tell you that when I speak about things I am always certain of them through experience. That of course is not preventing me to make mistakes since this experience may be probabilistically false. Despite that allow me again to tell you that I have played your mod in its past form...not a lot changed from your current...cannot remember the decimal numbers of the beta version bcs I erased it from my disk. Secondly allow me to term my mod as a total conversion too because the 1.7 GB of files there are not only formations and stats. Which of course you should have unterstood easily if you have played my mod . So the accusation is reversed. EB is a total conversion too but with as you say more modified parameters.Quote:
- First, try creating a total conversion. Or, at least, try playing ours. The reason you are able to so quickly adjust your mod and release new verisons is because the work that goes into it is at least one factorial less complex than any total conversion, which includes work on all the areas which you cover plus many, many more. You lack the perspective necessary to crticize our work or our timeframes. You haven't even played the mod, much less be able to understand how to make it. So your "criticism" here is nothing more than an attempt to insult our mod and mod team based on wild speculation and ignorance. I don't mean that in an offensive way, I just mean that you should learn about the things you are speaking of before using them as a means to insult people.
No. I will post whenever I feel my name is mentioned without me participating or getting informed of the situation. And allow me to regard a mass fan perception more valid than some mini-modders. If you mean that my modding effort is a glass house then I respond that it is far more solid than you may know. Finished, verified, used in almost all mods, widely tested and you cannot do anything about it than throw stones to it.Quote:
- Please take your own advice. Don't come here upset and raving mad because some members of this mod team don't see your work as being as effective as non-modders who haven't played with the code do. As modders we evaluate and test and are able to understand the difference between perception and reality. Because some modders come to the conclusion that your mod is much less effective (notice no one ever called your mod worthless) based on tests than fans' perception does not mean anyone is purposely trying to insult or undermine your mod. As the saying goes, people in glass houses should not throw stones.
I am very glad about these words because you agree to at least some of my assertments but you avoid to admit you (some EB members) have done this also specifically to me, therefore afraid to take a direct position on the matter.Quote:
Now, we have had an internal discussion about the way people present their opinions about other mods or modders' work. I personally find some of the comments that some of our members have made recently, and not necessarily in this thread or about your mod, as disgusting. Our team members have to realize they represent us in what they say and do. I am trying to help them to learn this. However, what they have said which I term "disgusting" in the past pales in comparison to what you say above. I really can't comment more on that or I too will be drawn into throwing insults around.
Allow me to make my assumptions then...maybe I do not understand but I have an opinion based on simple facts. Some things are simplier and get more complicated when excuses are generated. You know the backstage facts yourself and good for you. About my bussiness theory...I do not have to be a marketing guru to insist that continuous failing to meet the deadlines means extra cost, less income, dissapointment of the customers etc.Quote:
- Try not to speak about what you don't understand. I realize this is similar to my first point, but it bears repeating. You don't understand why there were delays, you have no idea of the scope of our project and the problems we have faced, and you really have no idea of the makeup of our team and who is actually capable of solving the problems we've run into. You're making judgements based on no information, and a list of past contributors to the mod. You're also making wild assumptions about the business world, when as a businessperson I have to question how you could draw this sort of false conclusion. Finally, you generalize about all EB team members when you have dealt with one or two.
That is a mistake of mine but I have said in my first posts that I do not mean to harm all the EB team of which I do not know the median stance against or in favour of me. As for the EB fan base I am certain that I indeliberately managed to make a lot quite unhappy but also I am sure that some like to listen to hard truth. I play ball in away stadium, in your forum, your fans, already being called an idiot from a young boy eager to learn new words etc. ..no matter I know that in the end I will lose because I am in hostile territory as it seems which is sad. It is sad because in the interactive non-real sub-space of TW modding I have offered a lot to be treated like this.Quote:
You also manage to insult not only the entire EB team, but also the entire EB fan base. In order to avoid this you really should stick to what you know, which is formations and stats. If you don't want an explanation as to what our problems were and delays were, and why we had to do what we did to overcome them, you shouldn't post such blatantly wrong assumptions about them.
I believe in open source modding and it is good to hear that you acknowledge it. I also sense you have played a much more older version of DarthMod than my latest to say that and also above that it is not a total conversion. Maybe there are disturbances in the force who knows...Quote:
I am personally happy that your mod has been so successful, and doubly happy that you have made tutorials that assist others in their efforts. Our own stats and formation work will no doubt benefit from this. I have tried your mod and I do see an improvement. I don't see it as effective as the fans do, but please understand that this is not meant as an insult. There is only so much anyone can do to affect the AI; RTW doesn't give us the tools to edit the battlefield or campaign AI, so we have to attack it in indirect ways.
Also I re-state that the whole issue for me is not that you do not use my formations but the way you have undermined it in the past (some EB members).Quote:
This does not mean I am trying to undermine you. We constantly get questions about why we don't use your formations. The truthful answer, without malice, is that we see some benefit to some of the things you have done but cannot accept it carte blanche because 1) our testing shows that the perception of benefit is greater than the actual benefit and 2) our own stats, formations, and battlefield behavior is wildly different from yours.
I know you cannot implement because you are in patch 1.2 and the techniques I use are valid from 1.3 patch and above or else there is a CTD.
Also technically I know that formations by their own cannot change too much the AI unless other files are balanced which I mention in my last tutorial. This is why I wrote it, I like to transfer my knowledge good or bad, large or small, to those who want to fix their own formations without experimenting from the beginning. If I wanted to gain singularity I would have kept all these things secret only to be compiled by more experienced modders.
No, not ignorance. A personal opinion expressed directly and sincerely with admit ably not the best manner as an answer to the pro-longed and inexcusable undermining of my AI modding by some EB members. I would have kept it for myself but since some members do like to express their opinions openly and indirectly, I do it also publicily and ...directly.Quote:
I would like to assume that your accusations of EB being mediocre and so on and so forth are simply borne out of ignorance and not malice. That is, I would like to think it is due to a lack of understanding of what we do (since you haven't created a total conversion and you haven't actually played our mod) than it is out of a desire simply to be insulting. To that end I would like to offer you the opportunity to learn the basics of trait work, scripting, complex building systems and intricate recruitment systems; essentially all the things that your mod is not focused on, so that in the future perhaps you have a better understanding of who we are and what we do, and why there are delays. I am happy to assist with this, and if I can't answer some of your questions or teach you what you need to know I will find others who can. In this way I am sure you will learn that what you say above is quite simply wrong, and perhaps you will be able to improve your own mod through these discussions.
This is a personal opinion of course. I do have a feeling that all the mods who focus more to the graphics, documentation and strict overall appearance of a game than the spirit of the gameplay are a bad influence to the general game industry since they think that gamers are really demanding that kind of things and continue to produce empty games full of eye pleasing things than mind stimulation.
I prefer to play with an old chess set than a fancy backgammon.
Still there are games in the industry that prove gameplay does sell (Football manager, pro-evolution soccer etc.) and hope the new M2TW game will supplement the fantastic graphic package with a decent gameplay.
Of course I do not mean that your mod does not have the potential to be the best out there. It has it. You just have to focus on battle gameplay too.
Or else name it a turn based RTW modification like Europa Universallis (an excellent game with certain identity) and leave battles out. Most of your named complex scripting procedures affect the campaign map and not the strength of the RTW-engine which are field battles. You try to perfect secondary goals.
Allow me also to know more things than formations and stats but only to specialize in the last two. So the assistance you offer could be granted if it was meant than used for irony.
Thank you for baring me up to now....I will leave this forum now and maybe soon all the forums since I will possibly retire for good. Maybe other games will attract me more to mod. Possibly I will produce smthg in M2TW very very late. So the possibility to do this writting for advertisement is eradicated ...as indirectly stated above (By Teleclos).
And then there are those that smile and are simply entertained at the amount of nonsense one individual can produce in each of his posts.Quote:
Originally Posted by DARTH_VADER
:wall:
Yes yes yes, The DarthVaderMod is the best because DARTH_VADER is the only person who has managed to fix the "true part" of the game or something of that nature, and we only try to fix the "eye-kandy for fanboys". We are obviously very inferior in any respect that matters. DARTH_VADER wins. I don't know why we would even make 0.8 available for download now anyway, since it really doesn't do anything of substance. We might finish it though. Hopefully it won't offend too many people.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth
I've just read the whole lot and :jawdrop: .
Time to close the thread?
Quite a number of people need to think about how they phrase what they say, and that doesn't just involve Darth; although it may be annoying from individual posters, particularly members of mods might want to take care to make sure that at the very least their comments can't be seen as the official mod view. Frankly if I'd been the creator of Darth's mod I'd have been offended by some of the remarks made in this topic (and others), much the same as I'd have been offended by many posts in other forums about EB were I a member of that collective.
Only thing I really want to say is that while one should be mindful of another's feelings this is doubly so for someone representing a group of people.
Edit: just to make it clear, this is not an issue I view as related exclusively to EB, but one that most mods struggle with. And an unnecessary one at that.
Our internal build has been on RTW 1.5 for many months, so no, we are not "2 generations behind".Quote:
Originally Posted by DARTH VADER
I have been extensively testing some of your ideas, particularly your stat_charge_dist and stat_fire_delay values on our internal build. I have noticed that the AI uses archers and skirmishers, particularly archers, in a much more realistic fashion. There is also an improvent in other units. This improvement is slight at best. Keep in mind that this is with EB formations and EB stats. I have not played your mod and cannot comment on how effective these stat changes are with your mod, but I can tell you better than anyone how they work with EB 0.79 for RTW 1.5.
@TK421:
I seriously like your name...you know why :)
I also do like the specific, technical and direct answer of yours.
As I state in my tutorial for these findings, I recommend for all who want to implement these to first play DarthMod latest 8.1 with my latest formations to see how they are optimised at best and then each one to optimise for his mod to have as a base the best results. And that is because some values do give weird results in some cases and you may think that you must cancel the implementation.
I am certain that if you implement them custom based to EB base you will get very good results.
I in the end hope best of luck to your team and your mod and despite my words which many times have a flavour of exaggeration feel that modders must correspond to each other directly as free democratic entities.
This brings controversy but many times this also brings results.
What it does not bring results are posts like some of your team and fan base who keep writting 2-3 lines of irony and flame against what they don't like or disagree.
Have fun....we are not payed.