Research: Fixes for bugs in the unit file

[Kraxis]

Small Pontic Pikemen
There's been some good stat analysis, and while that's not the be-all and end-all I feel pretty comfortable with the smaller unit size.

@ Kraxis, what are your thoughts in light of the previous posts?

Interestingly the pontic pikes are given the skin called east_hoplite, that added to the point that they have a shield bonus of 5 and a smaller size that does not fit the normal pike size, but rather the hoplite size, makes me believe it was intended to be a hoplite from the get go. At some point various devs and designers went their seperate ways. We have already seen the results of that with the Desert Axemen.
If it is because of the smaller population for a greek heritage I think we are taking a very wrong road. First of all there lived lots and lots of greek people in the old colonies, often themselves quite large cities. Plenty of population for a phalanx of pikes.
Second, this should also apply to the Seleucid Empire. There were macedonian and greek colonists but they were not enough to supply the empire with its needs (and they were great).

So I agree that the pontic pikes are intentionally made this way, but only due to several people pulling them each way and never getting the full control of the unit.

Large Desert Cavalry
I note the point about the Scythian noblewomen, but I would consider that it would be far more likely that a rogue 40 could find its way in there, rather than an 18.

But equally, their higher cost over the Nubian cavalry must contribute to something if they should be the same size as other cavalry units.

I think where it's not clear if it's a bug or not we have to err on the side of caution and leave the game as is.

Indeed... We have already seen one case of a person mixing up Desert Cavalry and Desert Axemen. I find it very possible that he is not the first case. And 40 is after all the size of the Desert Axemen.
Also it is the normal practice that the devs work at different jobs. So some create the unit, some give it stats and some balance the units with costs at some point (hopefully after some balancetesting). So if a dev in the stat department by accident made the Desert Cavalry bigger the next guy in the cost department wouldn't know something odd was up, so he would just give them a 'correct' cost. This of course applies to the pontic pikes as well.

About the immitation legionaries.
None of them were really made post-Marius. The Seleucids fell long before Marius was even a grown man. Numidia had become more of a special province and Armenia had been noticing the Roman advance against the Seleucids.
But given the Silver Shields are made to look like Legionary Cohorts I think it is far too much work to make them into a less able unit (would need another skin). Also this way they become a nice special unit. The Armenian and Numidian legionaries fit well enough and thus I see no need to change their recruitment.
Also we should not put too much emphasis on the name 'Legionaries'. While the later Roman infantry was called that they were also called that prior to Marius. They just had a specific name that told people where they stood in the line (there is a logic to the names). Hastati, Principes and Triarii existed long after Marius had died, but by then in name only. As the allied infantry was arrayed in cohorts rather than legions it was only the Roman troops that could be called legionaries, and since they were now all the same it made sense to be calling them legioanries rather than Hastati, Principes and Triarii (those terms were most likely relegated to a strictly military parlor at high command when discussing tactics and strategy).

[Epistolary Richard]

So I agree that the pontic pikes are intentionally made this way, but only due to several people pulling them each way and never getting the full control of the unit.
...
Also it is the normal practice that the devs work at different jobs. So some create the unit, some give it stats and some balance the units with costs at some point (hopefully after some balancetesting). So if a dev in the stat department by accident made the Desert Cavalry bigger the next guy in the cost department wouldn't know something odd was up, so he would just give them a 'correct' cost. This of course applies to the pontic pikes as well.

Hmmm... if this is the case then it would make it very difficult to determine what the original design intention was behind the unit because the costing will actually be balanced for the 'flawed' stats.

Nevertheless, we do what we can.

I think that we've come to a consensus on the following:
Roman Cavalry Auxilia - misleading name but not intended to be Post-Marian only and therefore shouldn't be changed in the community patch
Pontic Pikemen - incongruous unit size might be there for various reasons but the lower costing implies a smaller unit and therefore shouldn't be changed in the community patch

That being said, I'll certainly be looking to make some adjustments to my own personal game from the issues raised so far.


Large Desert Cavalry
I've done a side-by-side on this:

                   Desert Cavalry	Nubian cavalry
unit size	         40		27
mount		light		medium		
primary		7, 3, mace	9, 8, spear
attr		ap	
secondary	0		9, 3, sword		
pri armour	344 leather	064 flesh
sec armour	00 flesh	             01 flesh	
mental		4, trained	8, untrained	
cost		540		420

The Nubian cavalry seems pretty much superior in every respect (though slightly slower and more vulnerable to being shot at) apart from the ap ability.

The question is: do people think that the ap ability on its own makes up for the lower attack (7 lower charging, 2 lower in combat), 50% lower mental and is worth an extra 29% on the unit cost?

IMO no. So I think the 40 may have gone in by accident, but the cost has obviously been determined with the 40 unit size in mind.

Non-Roman legionaries

As for the legionaires...this one is tricky, because the basis for them is really Roman influence in their regions. When Rome began to enlist areas as allies, they started raising some of their own legions. Some of this predates the reforms (in the case of Numidia and perhaps Greece IIRC.) I don't think there is a single "correct" answer.

But given the Silver Shields are made to look like Legionary Cohorts I think it is far too much work to make them into a less able unit (would need another skin). Also this way they become a nice special unit. The Armenian and Numidian legionaries fit well enough and thus I see no need to change their recruitment.

I'm happy to concede this one. Damn silly to have all the references to them being copies of the Roman original though.

So, not for the community patch, but like hrvojej's cavalry auxilia I'll keep this one for my personal game.


Sarmatian Mercenaries
Let's have a look at this one. Sarmatian Mercenaries are obviously supposed to be identical to Scythian Noblemen and they are, except that they're missing:

mount_effect     elephant -8, camel -4

which is common across all other cavalry.
So, I agree with this. It's a bug and should be fixed.

Illyrian Mercenaries
I agree with this one as well. All the other peltast types have:

mount_effect     elephant +6, chariot +6

apart from the Illyrian mercenaries. It's a bug and should be fixed.


And another one to consider
Wardogs
Much as I'd like to see the mangey mutts put out of their misery...
As far as I can tell, the dogs resource doesn't do anything. To recruit camels, you need the camels resource; to recruit elephants, you need the elephants resource, but to recruit dogs you don't need the dogs resource.

I would suggest adding the dogs resource requirement to all the wardogs entries in export_descr_buildings:

recruit "barb wardogs briton"  0  requires factions {  britons, }  and resource dogs

[player1]

Sarmatian Mercenaries
Let's have a look at this one. Sarmatian Mercenaries are obviously supposed to be identical to Scythian Noblemen and they are, except that they're missing:

mount_effect     elephant -8, camel -4

which is common across all other cavalry.
So, I agree with this. It's a bug and should be fixed.

Well, elephants and camels are supposed to scare horses, so it is indeed a bug.

Illyrian Mercenaries
I agree with this one as well. All the other peltast types have:

mount_effect     elephant +6, chariot +6

apart from the Illyrian mercenaries. It's a bug and should be fixed.

Don't agree.

They don't have in their description bonus agains elephants and chariots, compared to other peltasts.

So they are really supposed to be special in some way.

[player1]

No. You have cause and effect backwards. Part of the description is pulled from the stat change. If you mod them you will see the bonus description in their stats (I have only modded their mount effects, and now the info is in the description, which I did not touch.) If you delete the mount effects from other units, the description disappears. Part of the description is generated from the stats file. Morale and stamina descriptions should work the same way.

The weapon type is the key. Javelin skirmishers were effective against both types of units. My guess is that some of the merc units were added early (or late) with standard stats and not rechecked with final stats for uniformity.

That is a good point, maybe it's bug after all.

[Kraxis]

To an extent I'm not so willing to make the Illyrians good against the eles and the chariots. I guess it is because the Illyrians are the best skirmishers out there and they are in fact a sort of factional unit for a faction that does not exist.
So there is a small penalty for hiring the best skirmishers. I kind of like that. But of course looking at it rationally they should have the bonusses.

I'm positive the Desert Cav are wrongly too big. The same goes for the pontic pikes. And yes AP is worth the weaker attack and charge (they have better defense). More than a lot of units have more than 4 in armour (which is the threshold for making the AP worthwhile compared to the Nubians) and those that have not are often brittle enough to break at the same time. So I think AP is very much stronger than it was in MTW (maybe because there is no lower limit like there was in MTW and armour can go much farther up this time).
There is no doubt in my mind that I would rather have a unit of Desert Cav than a unit of Nubian Cav when facing a unit of Legionaries, or even a unit of plain normal hoplites. And this is with the smaller size. But of course their cost is wrong for a smaller size, but I have already argued why that might be so.

All in all we can only speculate on how things are supposed to be. Who knows... the devs might have been drunk and thus have made the units as they are intendedly with every little oddity there is.

[drone]

If descr_regions.txt contains the actual resources available to a region, should the export_descr_buildings.txt be modified to limit wardogs and flaming pigs to regions with dogs and pigs? Assuming you haven't already modded them out, of course...

So for stables, cavalry_barracks, hippodrome, and circus_maximus:

recruit "barb wardogs briton"  0  requires factions {  britons, } and resource dogs
recruit "barb wardogs dacian"  0  requires factions { dacia, } and resource dogs
recruit "barb wardogs gaul"  0  requires factions { gauls, } and resource dogs
recruit "barb wardogs german"  0  requires factions { germans, } and resource dogs
recruit "barb wardogs scythian"  0  requires factions { scythia, } and resource dogs
recruit "roman wardogs"  0  requires factions { roman, } and resource dogs

and for hippodrome, and circus_maximus:

recruit "greek incendiary pigs"  0  requires factions { greek_cities, } and resource pigs
recruit "roman pigs"  0  requires factions { roman, } and resource pigs

Would this require

hidden resource dogs
hidden resource pigs

at the top with the sparta line?

I think this is probably in line with what the developers wanted.

If you don't like the v1.2 doggie brigade, you could leave dogs to be buildable, but change the descr_regions file to limit where they could be recruited. Any regions historically known for their wardogs?

[Simetrical]

One thing I want to add about the disputed unit sizes and cost: I am of the opinion that cost and upkeep were determined via some sort of formula based on stats.

I really doubt it. Notice how they changed some of the costs with both the 1.1 and 1.2 patches? I don't think they'd have done that if they had a hard-and-fast costing system. Probably the costs were just eyeballed—there's no reason to think otherwise.

Would this require

hidden resource dogs hidden resource pigs

at the top with the sparta line?

No, because the resources aren't hidden.

Any regions historically known for their wardogs?

War dogs, in the RTW sense, didn't exist. A few were probably brought along with a lot of armies for hunting, guard duty, whatever, but there are no records that anyone's been able to come up with about the use of dogs en masse in battle for any purpose whatsoever. So no, no regions were historically known for their war dogs.

-Simetrical

[Epistolary Richard]

Woof woof snort snort

If descr_regions.txt contains the actual resources available to a region, should the export_descr_buildings.txt be modified to limit wardogs and flaming pigs to regions with dogs and pigs? Assuming you haven't already modded them out, of course...

Yes, I completely forgot about the pigs (having never used them or had them used against me), but yes throw the bacon on the grill as well!

So dogs and pigs should be limited to provinces with the dogs and pigs resources, in the same way as camels and elephants. Now, dogs and pigs are pretty much everywhere anyway, so the impact would be minimal, but this will at least prevent the barbarian nations recruiting wardogs in the middle of deserts.
Where's a pig smiley when you really want one?

AFAIK the dogs & pigs resources serve no purpose at the moment, so I think it must have been the designers' intention to limit recruitment to those provinces.

But as Simetrical says, as they're resources anyway, like camels and elephants, they don't need to be added to the top of export_descr_buildings as far as I'm aware.

Illyrian mercenaries
I think we're settled that their missing mount effects are a bug?

Rogue barb_archer_slave officer
I agree this is a bug and the line should be deleted.

Thracian bodyguards
Kraxis raised this at the beginning:

Thracian normal and upgraded bodyguards are the same. Well they use the same stats... Maybe not a bug, but a very odd feature as all other factions gets upgraded.

... but it's not been commented on. Is this a bug? If it is, what's the fix?


A couple more 'hard' errors to consider:

Skinny Seleucid Legionaries
Seleucid Legionaries only have mass 1 whereas all other legionaries (including Armenian and Numidian) have mass 1.3.

Macedon Royal Pikemen
Only have the spear attribute and not the long_pike attribute as well. Both lower levels of Macedon pikemen (levy and phalanx) have both spear and long_pike attributes.

Invisible mounts
Many infantry units have the following line:

stat_sec_armour  0, 1, flesh

even though the narrative at the top of the export_descr_unit says that these are only for mounts (and indeed that ridden horses are not supposed to have a separate defence).

These units include:
All legionaries (including non-Roman)
Hastati
Principes
Spartans
Chosen Archers
Foresters
Scutarii
Bull Warriors
Merc Cilician Pirates
Merc Spanish Infantry

Back to more judgemental areas:
Pontic Phalanx Pikemen

If it is because of the smaller population for a greek heritage I think we are taking a very wrong road. First of all there lived lots and lots of greek people in the old colonies, often themselves quite large cities. Plenty of population for a phalanx of pikes.

Though we've kind of settled that this is an ill-designed unit that's nevertheless been costed correctly, it's even stranger that the lower level pike unit should be kept at 40, while the elite pike unit, the Bronze Shields - which would presumably be even more specialised manpower - should be 60.

I agree with Red that a costing formula was applied to incorrect stats - leaving us with a 'fair' cost for the unit, despite it not fitting in with the rest. Again, I would suggest we look to include a larger, more expensive, pike unit in a potential 2nd community patch (to mod all those 'left hand doesn't know what right hand is doing issues').

I really doubt it. Notice how they changed some of the costs with both the 1.1 and 1.2 patches? I don't think they'd have done that if they had a hard-and-fast costing system. Probably the costs were just eyeballed—there's no reason to think otherwise.

It wouldn't have been had-and-fast but the simplest way for them to derive the original costing for their units would have been a formula based on attributes. We can already tell from the identical costs for the same unit between different factions that they didn't do any faction balancing (ie, how much that unit is worth to that particular faction).

There will have been some stat changes after the costing formula and some rounding differences and so forth, but my preliminary work on infantry costing is actually looking vaguely promising but that's a conversation for a different thread.

[player1]

About Rolyal Pikemen:

In their historical description it explicitly says that they carried "shorter hoplite spears". No bug.

[player1]

About invisible mounts:
If they serve no purpose why modify them?
If they do serve some purpose, then since so many units have them, CA intentionaly put it there and thus is hardly a bug.



Skinny Seleucid Legionaries:

Is this even noticable in the game?
If not, why just bother with them at all?

[Epistolary Richard]

It's definitely atypical for higher-tier units to cost less than ones beneath them as in this case. I might play around with the numbers a bit tomorrow to see if we can get a rough idea on weighting.

[Epistolary Richard]

It's a good point. We have seen discrepancies with descriptions before, but at least it's one piece of evidence towards their intention.

I thought it may have something to do with the formation as I believe the bonus is supposed to represent the fact that elephants and chariots are less effective against loosely formed skirmishers who can jump out the way and throw spears at them. The formation for most peltasts are 1.6, 2, 3.2, 4, 3, square whereas Illyrian mercenaries are 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square.

There are however two other units with that formation (Heavy Peltasts and Mercenary Peltasts) and they both still get the mount bonus.

[hrvojej]

The unit "barb archer slave" has an officer associated with it, in the line

officer          barb_warguard

whereas none of the other archer warbands has an officer. The officer turns up wrongly anyway, as a blue chosen swordsman. I think this line should be deleted, or at least an officer should be changed (maybe to barb_standard, but I don't think so, since none of the regular, i.e. not chosen, archer warbands have one).