Raphia Beta

[abou]

I have a beta of my Battle of Raphia up. I would greatly appreciate some feedback as to what can be improved.

You can find the download here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showp...1&postcount=37

[abou]

Here are some screens:

Seleukid forces


Ptolemaioi


Elephant on Elephant action


Can the Galatians resist the elephants?


Elephants through the forest of spear

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Gah! That is immediately the biggest battle I've ever fought. I had no idea what I was doing. Good news is it works fine for me. It really was too big for my slow computer though. It was humongous! Very good work - I hope you keep updating it for the next builds.

Are you going to work on some more historical battles? That would be really great if you did. (hint hint!)

[abou]

I am very glad you liked it TA! I most definitely intend to keep updating it and tweaking it as EB comes closer to completion. I might make a smaller version if I have the time, but my new computer spoils me so much I wouldn't want to dare think of anything smaller.

As for more historical battles... well, I have been tossing around the idea of Ilipia during the 2nd Punic War as well as some of Caesar's stuff. I also have a bit of a fancy for the Battle of Idistaviso so expect a few more from me.

... now I just need to worry about biochemistry.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I liked having only one wing of the battle. That was pretty cool too. The landscape was nice also, though I don't know how close it was to the real battle (I don't know a tremendous amount about it).

As for how I did: I pushed my phalangites ahead, and swung my elephants around behind them, away from the light troops. My other wing charged in and met the enemy elephants that opposed me on the middle of the closing battlefield, and with my skirmishers they managed to rout them. I sent my cavalry around my right and took out their skirmishers and missile units on the wing, and their cavalry charged straight at the one unit of phalanx troops I had on my right, wiping them out. The key for me was pulling the elephants back and then making a gap close to but not right at the middle of the field where they could charge through and find themselves alone, behind the Ptolemaic phalangites. I mowed through a few of their rows and took out enough of them that my companions and thracian cavalry could swing around at that point and smash into the rear of the rest and finish them off. They managed to reform some of the routed units to the rear of the action, but I had too much of an advantage at that point to lose, even though my elephants finally did go mad before they were able to finish the infantry off. The key also to using them was not charging them straight at the enemy, but getting on his side, and plowing through them from their flank. Fun stuff.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Oh, one weird thing - it froze up when I killed the ptolemaic general. It was showing the cut scene and just stopped. I've never had that happen, but attribute it entirely to the huge scale of what was going on - way too big for my cpu. I was hoping to look at it with the battle cam though. Oh well.

[abou]

Do you know which general? If it was Ptolemaios that might be because killing him is one of the Seleukid objectives. Removing that line from descr_battle.txt might solve the problem.

I decided to include the killing of Ptolemaios because Bar-Kochva mentions it as the justification for Antiochos chasing the routed wing rather then coming back around to hit the rear of the Egyptian phalanx. This seems like pretty good reasoning for why an experienced commander like Antiochos didn't come back when he should have.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Oh, one weird thing - it froze up when I killed the ptolemaic general. It was showing the cut scene and just stopped. I've never had that happen, but attribute it entirely to the huge scale of what was going on - way too big for my cpu. I was hoping to look at it with the battle cam though. Oh well.

Did it freeze, not crash, when showing the general dying?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Totally froze - maybe the only time mine has ever done that in a battle.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

Totally froze - maybe the only time mine has ever done that in a battle.

I don't think it actually froze. I've had that happen many times (2 or 3 times). I thought I may be the only one experiencing it. If the enemies break and the general dies at the same time it will 'freeze'. If it times it exactly perfect, the general dead message, general dead cutscene, and continue battle message will all hit at the exact same time (usually the enemy army breaks just after the general's death). The only way to fix it is to do ALT-TAB, go to windows, then immediately return to RTW.exe. The load bar will run and when you return there will be the continue? message...

[Fondor_Yards]

Great battle mate, ton of fun.

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...Yards/rap1.jpg

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...Yards/rap2.jpg

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I don't get the load bar popping up, I run with the -ne (or -nm? - I use both) that makes it easier to shift between programs (better for modding it seems).

[Thaatu]

Worked great when I played it, although Ptolemy got away. My only criticism is that african elephants are larger than indian ones (damn, I almost got the picture of the month).

[Krusader]

Worked great when I played it, although Ptolemy got away. My only criticism is that african elephants are larger than indian ones (damn, I almost got the picture of the month).

Elephants are being reworked on and African Forest Elephants will be smaller than their Indian counterparts when it's done.

[Moros]

good job, abou! Great to see that you got it to work and all! really cool. So where's the next one?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Recruit some guys and make some more. We'll make up EB Historical Battles Team sigs for you guys.

[abou]

So where's the next one?

I'm thinking somewhere in Gaul. The only question is what makes up a tribal contingent.

One of the interesting things that I think can be done is that with the Marian Romans each battle line can be represented by an in-game cohort with the first line bigger than the second and third.

So where as a legion would be lined up similar to this:

| | | |
__ __ __
__ __ __

Instead we would something like this:

____ <-- 100 man unit for four cohorts
____ <-- 75 man unit for three cohorts
____ <-- 75 man unit for three cohorts

This way I think I can minimize Roman units and their numbers whilst keeping the barbarian units large enough to approach the supposedly massive tribal armies a certain famous general had to fight against.

So what I am saying is expect me to come to a decision sometime tonight or tomorrow; I'll research over spring break; then hopefully get something together the week after once I get back to my apartment and computer.

[Moros]

What battle in Gaul are you thinking about? One of Caesar's?

Awesomeness!

Edit: I know there's no Belgae faction but what about Ambiorix's ambush? A little less known one ( compared to Gergovia, Alesia,...) I guess the Arverni could be used and there a are Belgae units enough. Plus you can use some of the more generic Celtic units. You can find it back in de bello gallico and ... TOugh actual numbers of units will be hard when it comes to the Belgae. The romans were just 1.5 legion I believe.

[abou]

Well, it has been announced, but the Battle of the Sambre is definitely another battle to be done.

After all, the Belgae are the bravest of the Gaulish people.

[Boyar Son]

Ooh! please do one on Pompey's wars in Iberia if you could find one.

[abou]

Ooh! please do one on Pompey's wars in Iberia if you could find one.

I did a quick look around to see what I could find. It has been a while since I did any reading on Pompey, but it seems as though his performance in Iberia was really sub par. If anything, Sertorius was the real strategical genius, but his being betrayed by his allies created the opportunity for Pompey to show off his managerial abilities once the rebellion was pacified.

There doesn't seem to be much to work with, but I'll keep an eye out for the future if something comes up.

[Moros]

Well, it has been announced, but the Battle of the Sambre is definitely another battle to be done.

After all, the Belgae are the bravest of the Gaulish people.

The battle of the sambre is another one. The battle of the sambre was made by Nervii and it wasn't for much or the Romans lost. However they didn't, thanks to legio X and IX (if my memory serves me well). In the end the nervii were crushed. The numbers in De Bello Gallico are heavily exagerated tough. Many of the surviving Nervii later joined Ambiorix in his attack. He ambushed 1.5 legion on the march to a near by camp. After a few unsuccesfull attacks on the roman camp, Ambiorix sued for peace. He also made the roman generals believe that a large german army was on the way. So he told them that they'd better leave to another camp. No germans were comming tough, the romans however got their a ttack as Ambiorix ambushed him in a valley and completly anhilated them. (Except for a small part of the army who could flee back to the camp and suicided later that night.)

Anyway the battle of bibracte will do just fine too!

[Boyar Son]

Ok then how 'bout a battle between the Romans and the Brithons?

[Krusader]

I'd like to see battle of Metaurus. Battle that saved Rome really and one of the very few instances where two Roman consuls actually cooperated.

Although that should perhaps wait till after next version due to some unit additions.

[CaesarAugustus]

For Gaul maybe you could do Bibracte or Alesia. I would also definently like to see the battle of Carrhae with EB units, I was not satasfied with the Vanilla version. (Actually, all of the vanilla historical battes were pretty lame)