Fixing Phalanx Behaviour

[hrvojej]

No, this. So far so good, as far as I'm concerned.

Try this (after you have modified the mass):
- change the attack frequency and lethality of companions to something like 75, 0.73 or 100, 0.73
- leave the pike stats intact, but change the sword stats of a phalanx in the same way as mentioned above

I think this gives an improved result. If the second row of pikes won't fight, then we can make the first row fight more frequently than the opposition. If they get past that, the phalangites will fight like regular guys. And if all my units have 75, 073 while pikes have the lethality of 1 and are able to stab much faster, you bet that I'll think twice before charging anything into the front of the unmodded phalanx pikes.

[Kraxis]

I'm not certain what you mean...

Would you weaken the swords to be slower? Or am I intepreting the placement of the number wrongly?

[hrvojej]

Not exactly. I would make them slower with respect to the pikes. In my case, I have slowed down the swords and decreased their lethality (I did this for all units to slow down the killrate - and it works nicely btw). However, I put the pikes at 50 speed (as opposed to 75 of evberybody else) and 1 lethality (as opposed to 0.73 of everybody else). So, (for the same stats) pikes are more effective weapons than any other in the game, including the secondary weapons of a phalanx. This simulates the rank effect (they stab faster and are more likely to cause a kill) without actually modifying the attack/defense stats. An example of weapon stats for phalanx pikemen:

stat_pri         8, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 50 ,1
stat_sec         5, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 75 ,0.73

Of course, you could also just make pikes faster, so while everyone else is at 25, you could put them at 10 (and leave the lethality the same). I haven't tried this personally, since I wanted to slow things down in general, but it's a similar solution.

I'm not saying I found the answer, just that it seems quite a bit better to me.

[Kraxis]

Ahhh I had mixed up the speed and the lethality. I haven't gotten lethality... how does it work? Not in a term of removing hitpoints I take it. Then every unit that faces a 0.73 units is in effect a 2HP unit.

Perhaps you are right and the speed should be lowered a bit for everything but the pikes and spears. Making it faster would be too fast for the animation it seems. I see the pikemen and hoplites stab all the time, so speeding up doesn't seem like an option.

[hrvojej]

Ahhh I had mixed up the speed and the lethality. I haven't gotten lethality... how does it work?

Actually I asked the same question some time ago in the mod forum and nobody knew the answer.

From the tests I've done since then, I think it's the percentage of doing 1HP of damage if the attack is successful (1 being the 100%). It also therefore dulls down charges a bit, but it's not weird like units having decimal HP etc.

[Kraxis]

Makes no sense that it is in, might explain why it isn't mentioned in the header of the file (added late). A 0.73 unit is actually only having an effective attack that is 73% of its value. That is more than 1 point of attack for a 4 attack unit. It is in fact strange that the spears which usually have a stronger charge gets such a modifier that actually sucks the life out the charge. Nah... I think I will make every unit 1 in lethality but lower the attackspeed of spearunits so that their charge is as effective as it should be.

[hrvojej]

It's not just spears but also some high attack units, like berserkers. It might be that successful attack still knocks the man down, it just doesn't kill him (or something to that effect...). But the stat surely does something to decrease the kill rate. Also, slowing the attack down alone does nothing to dull the charge.

From the MTW projectilestats file:

;Lethality The base chance of a hit scoring a kill. This can greater than 1 as is multiplied by the base kill chance (by default 18%)
; However if the two multiplied together should not exceed 100%

So I think it does something similar here as well. Unfortunatelly, we don't know what.

Also, lethality, attack frequency AND fire delay seem to have no impact on ranged weapons, possibly because it's linked to the projectile itself? I however don't know how to change it otherwise, as there doesn't seem to be anything comparable in the projectile_new file.

[professorspatula]

I think the lethality is just some kind of multiplier that is used to determine whether or not the attack is successful. Change the Auxilia from 0.73 to 1.73 and it's successful kill rate is very high, so much so that Early Legionaries will be beaten by them. Yet put it back to 0.73 and the Auxillia unit's attacks will miss far more often and they'll be massacred.

It's no wonder the non-phalanx spear units are so poor at hand to hand, not only is their attack rating low, but the lethality is lower than sword, cavalry spears and knives and small axes. Libyan spearmen never stand a chance against the Legionaries, and they're not that good against cavalry either!

I've done quite a lot of modding to my game along the lines of many people here it seems (speed, kill rates, morale etc) but I'm becoming slightly concerned about meddling too much with certain factors. I'm not sure who will benefit more if I up the defence value of certain units or increase their mass to stop them being pushed around like children - me or the AI. I don't need any more help!

[Kraxis]

The AI will benefit more from mass than you will, while you will gain more from defensive ability.

Mass will help the AI because it grants an effective bonus to the sometimes odd charges the AI makes. Defensive bonus takes that away. Also, since it seems that the defensive bonus is directional it is easier for you to get something out of it. Defensive bonus also slows down the battle making it more easy for you to flank the enemy (that is the paradox of slower battles).
Of course mass should only be given to certain units, or else it matters not.

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

On a sidenote, I have a question about cavalry charges against infantry (ancient, not medieval). What was that killed the soldiers? The riders or the horses kicking anything below and in front of them? Kind of a stupid question, since I guess it was both, but I ams curious as to the effect of the horses.

[Kraxis]

The horses of good quality cavalry, such as Companions or other similar shock cavalries, would be nasty beings themselves. Aggressive, hot tempered and even malicious would be fitting qualities of a warhorse.
Bucephalus, Alexander's horse was a horse noone else dared ride, but he befriended it and it saved him a number of times by its sheer toughness and it perhaps even killed men or at least knocked them down by its own will.

So while the rider was the most dangerous part of a cavalry duo you shouldn't ignore the horse. Have you ever seen the Spanish Horseschool with that jumping kick? Similar tecniques must have been avaliable to the ancient horseschools.

[jimmyM]

The main aim of the cavalry charge was to use the breast/front of the horse to physically mow down/knock over enemy infantry as the rider lashed out with spear/sword etc. this technique was used up until Napoleonic times. Also the same problem of horses being unwilling to charge large bodies of formed up men holding pointy things (spears/bayonets) was a hindrance - only cataphracts should be able to plow into the front of phalanx or spear infantry due to physical momentum/massive amounts of armour etc.
For other cavalry formations a head on charge would be far too costly in terms of casualties. unfortunately it seems there are oversights in the game that negate against this somewhat (spearmen moving uphill effectively don't have weapons as far as the code is concerned, overly airborne horsies,etc.) though I would say RTW's physics system makes a nice change to medievals' lack of guys gtting pushed/knocked back/thrown around, though...

[BeeSting]

Agreed.... One major factor that's missing in this game is the rejecting an order to attack something out of complete fear.

I don't know.... does morale = fear? I think they are tied together somewhat but would like to think of them working differently in a person.

[Red Harvest]

The horses of good quality cavalry, such as Companions or other similar shock cavalries, would be nasty beings themselves. Aggressive, hot tempered and even malicious would be fitting qualities of a warhorse.
Bucephalus, Alexander's horse was a horse noone else dared ride, but he befriended it and it saved him a number of times by its sheer toughness and it perhaps even killed men or at least knocked them down by its own will.

Reminds me of a horse I grew up with...only it hated men. It was gentle for women and children (I remember sneaking off to its pasture and lounging around on its belly as it was trying to roll in the dust when I was 5 or 6.) It wouldn't let an adult man ride it though.

[conon394]

I don't know Kraxis.

The stories about Alexander and his horse are pretty thick with 'Alexander Romance'. A cavalry unit made up or temperament aggressive stallions would be a pain to manage and a danger to their riders. I suspect that the bulk of cavalry rode mares or geldings.

[Kraxis]

Granted there is a bit myth about him and his exploits, but it is a fact that he named a city after the horse, Bucephalon. And while it most likely wasn't that he just walked up to this wild horse and tamed him, it seems rather plausible that the background for it was that the horse was indeed a furious beast.
Savage horses weren't invented in the medieval times, that training had been around since shockcavalry had engaged infantry.
A horse is a group animal, if it is submissive compared to its rider then it will follow his commands to a great extent, and it will accept being among 'competitors', as that is what non-top horse stallions do, they bunch up in bachelor groups or gangs. Dethroned stallions are the loners. So if you can keep the stallion as a bachlor it won't mind being among other stallions. Of course fights do break out but not on the battlefield where the riders control the beasts.
The only time the riders would lose control was when mares in heat was around, then it is every stallion for himself. There are two very famous incidents of such behaviour. One of the first battles between the crusaders and the turks in the 1st crusade pitted crusader stallions against turk mares in heat... Confusion, as neither side could control their horses. I'm happy I wasn' there when that happened.
Another incident doesn't involve riders but it explains the behavior well.
Denmark had allied with Napoleon and he had sent spanish troops to help us against the brits who patrolled the danish seas. As we all know Napoleon and Spain weren't friends after a while and the brits managed to extract many of the troops in Denmark. Unfortunately they couldn't carry the horses so they were left behind. 600 andalusian stallions on a beach. Soon they discovered a few danish mares in heat on a meadow nearby. Savage fighting broke out with hundreds of horses dead or dying by the end of it.
These horses had not been fihting previously, but the advent of mares in heat did them in.

I don't know what people did to stop such situations from happened but something must have been done as stallions were the preferred mounts of the medieval and mordern times for sure, and I expect of the ancient times as well.