Germanic Pikemen

[Thunder Mist]

How do I change the EDU file so that the Germanic pikemen fight in a phalanx formation? No matter how I change it, the game just crashes to the desktop.

My current changes are as follows:

type germanic infantry gaisaz harjoz
dictionary germanic_infantry_gaisaz_harjoz ; Speutagardaz
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type General_1
soldier germanic_infantry_gaisazharjoz, 50, 0, 1.2
officer ebofficer_germanic_standardbearer
mount_effect elephant -3
attributes sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, very_hardy
formation 0.76, 1, 2, 2.4, 5, square, phalanx
stat_health 1, 1
stat_pri 16, 8, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 0 ,0.15
stat_pri_attr long_pike, light_spear
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 0 ,0.1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 7, 13, 4, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 4
stat_ground 0, 0, 1, 0
stat_mental 15, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 1606, 452, 125, 174, 1606
ownership germans, armenia, slave

[vollorix]

When does the crash occures? When you start a game, or when you´re already in the game, and klick on the unit, or during the battles?
If you have show_err enabled in your EB shortcut you should gain the failure message pointing you towards the specific collumn, and line in the EDU, if it´s about a typo mistake.
Though not very significant for EDU editing, a notepad++ is a much better tool than the standard one ( saves you many problems, esp. while editing EDCT etc. ).

A macedonian phalangitai style unit ( phalanx attribute ) normaly has a secondary melee weapon ( mace or sword ), that would be used when a unit is flanked, or attacked from the rear. The unit model of Speuthagardaz lack those, in the EDU entry, and the DMB files. Their model might not have the animations for the sec. weapons at all, and thus might only be changed by editing the model itself with a 3d editor.

Aside from all that, i would consider changing some stats not to make germanic pikemen an uber unit:
- very_hardy is quite a powerfull value ( give it to a standard phalanx unit, and see the results )
- the horizontal unit spacing of 0.76 is way to tight for a phalangitai unit ( compare them with hellenistic units with "phalanx" attribute )
- i, for myself, have removed the ownership for all germanic units, except for their levy spearmen, which are split in two separate units ( the factional, and the regional/ merc. one for foreigners to be hired/recruited ) for all other factions, but that´s my way to make it more difficult to assimilate/control Germania for other factions
- most phalangitai style units have larger shields, quite high armour values, but relatively low defence skills; you´ve upped the shield value by +1, which makes the unit more resillent against missiles, and generally while facing another unit from the front, but the defence skill of your pikemen is very high; so, even when outflanked, they would give you a hell of a fight, especially since they are not only disciplined ( which i doubt any barbarian non elite unit really was ), but also highly trained.
- the unit mass of your pikemen of 1.2 is even lower then that of a standard hoplite unit ( which is 1.22 iirc ), which means, they will be easily pushed back by heavy infantry ( 1.4 is a value for hellenistic factions pike units ).
- in the stat_ground: your unit has no disadvantages at all, while having bonus in forests; actually, everything aside from plain terrain could disrupt a phalangitai formation, or even make it useless; imagine these tight packed men, with long pikes marching, and manouvering in forests - the engine doesn´t reflect it very well, but normaly the formation would be quite disrupted - but you can assigne heavy penalties to those units ( like: -4 for forests, for example; i gave all germanic units their snow bonuses again - if i´d face a Sweboz army during winter, and you are in a forested area, i guess no all elite stack would help me to survive that battle, despite winning it ).

I hope i could help, at least a little; maybe someone else might notice an obvious mistake in your changes, i can´t right now....

[Thunder Mist]

When does the crash occures? When you start a game, or when you´re already in the game, and klick on the unit, or during the battles?
If you have show_err enabled in your EB shortcut you should gain the failure message pointing you towards the specific collumn, and line in the EDU, if it´s about a typo mistake.
Though not very significant for EDU editing, a notepad++ is a much better tool than the standard one ( saves you many problems, esp. while editing EDCT etc. ).

Yeah, I use notepad++. As it turns out, the error was in a modification of a different file, which I had previously edited. It had nothing to do with the pikemen here at all, lol.

A macedonian phalangitai style unit ( phalanx attribute ) normaly has a secondary melee weapon ( mace or sword ), that would be used when a unit is flanked, or attacked from the rear. The unit model of Speuthagardaz lack those, in the EDU entry, and the DMB files. Their model might not have the animations for the sec. weapons at all, and thus might only be changed by editing the model itself with a 3d editor.

I swear I remember in previous versions of EB that the pikemen used to be able to form a phalanx AND have secondary weapons. But this was years ago, and my memory may be off.

Aside from all that, i would consider changing some stats not to make germanic pikemen an uber unit:
- very_hardy is quite a powerfull value ( give it to a standard phalanx unit, and see the results )
- the horizontal unit spacing of 0.76 is way to tight for a phalangitai unit ( compare them with hellenistic units with "phalanx" attribute )
- i, for myself, have removed the ownership for all germanic units, except for their levy spearmen, which are split in two separate units ( the factional, and the regional/ merc. one for foreigners to be hired/recruited ) for all other factions, but that´s my way to make it more difficult to assimilate/control Germania for other factions
- most phalangitai style units have larger shields, quite high armour values, but relatively low defence skills; you´ve upped the shield value by +1, which makes the unit more resillent against missiles, and generally while facing another unit from the front, but the defence skill of your pikemen is very high; so, even when outflanked, they would give you a hell of a fight, especially since they are not only disciplined ( which i doubt any barbarian non elite unit really was ), but also highly trained.
- the unit mass of your pikemen of 1.2 is even lower then that of a standard hoplite unit ( which is 1.22 iirc ), which means, they will be easily pushed back by heavy infantry ( 1.4 is a value for hellenistic factions pike units ).
- in the stat_ground: your unit has no disadvantages at all, while having bonus in forests; actually, everything aside from plain terrain could disrupt a phalangitai formation, or even make it useless; imagine these tight packed men, with long pikes marching, and manouvering in forests - the engine doesn´t reflect it very well, but normaly the formation would be quite disrupted - but you can assigne heavy penalties to those units ( like: -4 for forests, for example; i gave all germanic units their snow bonuses again - if i´d face a Sweboz army during winter, and you are in a forested area, i guess no all elite stack would help me to survive that battle, despite winning it ).

All of this will be noted. I tested the pikemen in a custom battle against Macedonian klerouchoi phalangites, and yes, they're overpowered. They are an elite unit though, but not THAT elite, hah.

I hope i could help, at least a little; maybe someone else might notice an obvious mistake in your changes, i can´t right now....

It's all good, thank you. Everything's working now, and you gave me some good unit balancing tips. I just need to find a possible skeleton for the DMB file and see if it'll work to give these buggers a secondary weapon. As it is now, they just turn around and shield-bash their enemies to smithereens when flanked.


Note: This begs a new question. Does anyone know how I might be able to modify the description model battle files to enable the Germanic pikemen to have a secondary weapon?

[fallen851]

I actually just did this myself.

Anyway to give them a secondary weapon, open up your descr_model_battle text, and find this entry. Then add the bolded section (replacing what was there), including the comma, and then give them a secondary weapon in the EDU.


; Germanic infantry - Gáizáhárjoz

type germanic_infantry_gaisazharjoz
skeleton fs_thp_f_spearman_p, fs_swordsman
indiv_range 40
texture germans, eb/data/models_unit/textures/germanic/ebgermanic_infantry_gaisaharjoz_forgus_stefan25_germans.tga
texture slave, eb/data/models_unit/textures/germanic/ebgermanic_infantry_gaisaharjoz_forgus_stefan25_rebel.tga
model_flexi eb/data/models_unit/ebgermanic_infantry_gaisaharjoz_alin_stefan25_HIGH.CAS, 15
model_flexi eb/data/models_unit/ebgermanic_infantry_gaisaharjoz_alin_stefan25_HIGH.CAS, 30
model_flexi eb/data/models_unit/ebgermanic_infantry_gaisaharjoz_alin_stefan25_HIGH.CAS, 40
model_flexi eb/data/models_unit/ebgermanic_infantry_gaisaharjoz_alin_stefan25_HIGH.CAS, max
model_sprite germans, 60.0, eb/data/sprites/germanic/ebsprite_germanic_infantry_gaisazharjoz_germans.spr
model_sprite slave, 60.0, eb/data/sprites/germanic/ebsprite_germanic_infantry_gaisazharjoz_slave.spr
model_tri 400, 0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f


Here is how my EDU looks:

;37
type germanic infantry gaisaz harjoz
dictionary germanic_infantry_gaisaz_harjoz ; Speutagardaz
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type General_1
soldier germanic_infantry_gaisazharjoz, 40, 0, 1.2
officer ebofficer_germanic_standardbearer
mount_effect elephant -3
attributes sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, hardy
formation 1.1, 1, 1.5, 2, 6, square, phalanx
stat_health 1, 1
stat_pri 16, 11, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 0 ,0.14
stat_pri_attr long_pike, spear
stat_sec 7, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, slashing, sword, 0 ,0.16
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 7, 10, 4, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 4
stat_ground 0, 0, 1, 0
stat_mental 9, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 1606, 402, 125, 174, 1606
ownership germans, slave

If you were to copy and paste those entries into your dmb and edu it should work perfectly. Now I just have to decide if I like it.

EDIT: I decided I didn't like it, but to each his own!