The Caravel Mod

[gollum]

Ok, new version will be available soon. This is the final version, for 2011 at least. I feel that the mod has succeded in all its goals and more now.

The new version, v2.2, contains minor stat adjustemnts in 3 unit cases. Its fully saved game compatible and the experience of the game remains 95+% unaltered from v2.1.

The stat adjustments are:

1. Xbows and arbs are returned to their normal melee, ie not ap anymore.

I have fully becomed convinced that the ap does not infact give any melee benefit against low/medium armor opponents as i was hoping. It also certainly does not make them helpful against high armour opponents - try flanking heavy cavalry; i did and the heavy cavalry felt a slight mosquito bite from teh xbows and then turned around and routed them while it was still fighting the spear that had it pinned. Not to mention that they were slow and fatigued alot due to being armoured.

So the ap is taken out as it is misleading - it might tell people that these units can do some ap damage, when they are in fact not going to and you are much better off having them shoot instead all the while.

All in all, i think that the problem i was trying to solve (AI moving about too much his missiles and having them getting caught by infantry/cavalry) needs tweaking of a different parameter altogether. I will try to experiment with the engagement threshold parameter (and a fewothers i have in mind) and see, but this mod is now finalised and at least for 2011 won't be updated further.

2. Adjusted the maintenance cost of the Swiss BGs (Swiss armoured pikemen) - now they cost about the same as other factions' BGs and the player does not benefit from that as they are unique to the Swiss and BG only (non-trainable). The player can still train Swiss pikes and Swiss halbs in Switzerland normaly as in vanilla.

This will improve the cah flow of the Swiss faction considerably, and as they are set on expansionist, beware of them if they emerge in your general area.

3. Adjusted Byzantine Kata BG to adapt them at being a 20 man unit.

The original unit was slow, large and powerful. Since now much of this power is taken away due to them being a 20man BG, i restored their speed to normal cavalry speed. This does not make them speed race champions - they are still slow and fatigue easily - they have probably 2 max full speed charges in them - but faster than before - basically alittel slower and more easily fatigued than Kwarazmians/Avar Nobles/khazar royal cav of vanilla. The idea is that they should be able to apply their smaller strength around the battlefield where needed, as "charge and let them duke it out" doesn't work with them anymore due to their smaler size. Also with their very small speed coupled with their now smaller size they would be too easy to capture when routing and also be easier sniped by missiles.

In addition to these 3 small changes, v2.2 contains an adjusted BG unit behaviour for all BGs of all factions, after following a suggestion/hint fom Raz.

Raz suggested that the BG be more conservative in battle so as to keep behind the lines, and thus the player not having an easy time sniping it out - as that's easy due to its small size. I followed his clue to set the BG units to DEFENSIVE, instead of ATTACKING (as they are) unit status, but that made them too conservative, and they would not use their power in early battles where BG units are the most powerful cavs/units.

Hence, i left the unit designation (ATTACKER, AMBUSH, ANTI_MISSILE, CAVALRY) as i could find nothing wrong with it for the unit (the unit should use its strength to attack, should prioritise missiles, should be an ambusher and try to flank), and i experimented with another closely linked set of parameters available.

I am refering to column 53. This is stated as "No longer used" but i am absolutely certain that it is used as i tried changing the parameters there and they did make considerable difference.

A typical line of this from Heavy cavs/BGs looks like that:

"SKIRMISH(0), ADVANCE_PARTY(1),OUTFLANKING_FORCE(1), MAIN_BODY(1), HOLD_TERRAIN(0), RESERVE(1), REINFORCEMENT(1), ASSAULT(2), ASSAULT_COVER(0), ASSAULT_COVER_CASTLE_ATTACK(0), COVER(0)"

Basically it designates (seems to me) the position and role of the unit in an army. The highest i saw in any of these values from any unit was 2 and the lowest 0.

The meanings, in my view are:

Skirmish: self explanatory, and it might (?) hold the key to the answer for the xbow/arbs problem - if it denotes which units have skirmish amility on
Advanced Part: unit being on the front lines
Outflanking force: unit included in the splitting of forces the AI does when he outnembers or when heis more mobile in force composition in order to sandwitch the enemy army
Main Body: unit being with the main melee line
Hold tarrain: i have no clue what this might do, and i am intrigued by it, as it may make the AI use its xbow/arb missiles better if used. I haven't seen any unit having set to more than 0 on that.
Reserve: Unit beig part of the 3rd line behind the melee main line (main body)
Reinforcement: Unit to be prioritised for reinforcement - so unit will wait untill its needed while others melee - typically for missiles.
Assault: Unit is to lead the charge that initiates the melee
Assault Cover: Unit is to fire to the enemy lines while its own army is engaging/fighting in melee - typically for archers, bow units/xbow-arb/guns
Assault cover Castle: Same as before but while on a siege assault
Cover: Firing at the enemy to cover advanced units of own army - again for missiles

If you consider the above and then study the designation for BG units that, as said is the same for HC full size units that do not contain family members, its clear that the higherst priority of the unit is Assault (2). This explains all those heroic single handed, but doomed, charges of BGs, and this is what i reduced. I reduced Assault to 1 and instead put 2 in the Main Body.

With these settings the BGs now will not lead the charge alone and wait for the others to catch up - but it will attack together with all the rest of the main line. This is also the reason why the BGs units sit there while other units coming up to it when the battle has reinforcements, i think. Now the unit will be sitting behind the others, protected, and will not recklessly commit, but still commit, to charges/fighting. However, full scale HC/Knights were left to assault 2, as they do not contain heirs/kings and do not suffer from small size. For them it makes perfect sense to lading the charge and that actually is ok and desirable even.

The results are a clear improvement of the use of the BG units by the AI. He uses them now in coordination with his main body army, but without being too conservative with them - which will help him, particularly in the early battles. I did now about 40+ battles in custom and campaign letting the AI have full size knights and BG knights and observed the difference. The feature works as described and its a clear improvement over the previous setting, as i hope you all find out.

The exact setting i used for 20 man BGs is:
"SKIRMISH(0), ADVANCE_PARTY(1), OUTFLANKING_FORCE(1), MAIN_BODY(2), HOLD_TERRAIN(0), RESERVE(1), REINFORCEMENT(1), ASSAULT(1), ASSAULT_COVER(0), ASSAULT_COVER_CASTLE_ATTACK(0), COVER(0)"

If someone wanted to make the BGs even more conservative, i say you could try putting the advanced party to 0. If youput 2 to reinforcement, the unit will not commit at all until the point its own line is faltering. This makes it the safest from missiles, but at the same time, it wastes its potential during melee, imo. Perhaps putting 2 to reserve might also help. I am not sure if putting two values@ 2 will be meaningful; it might be better that the highest priority/role for the unit is clear.

So, this is it, the mod is now completed (for this year at least:), and i hope you all enjoy. Thank you for your interest and patience.

I will make a post to let you know when the new version is up, and also update my signature link to reflect that.