Research: Fixes for bugs in the unit file

**player1** · 03-02-2005, 17:31

Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

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:

Code:

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.

Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

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

Code:

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** · 03-02-2005, 23:36

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

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** · 03-03-2005, 00:06

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** · 03-03-2005, 00:49

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:

Code:

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:

Code:

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

Code:

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** · 03-03-2005, 04:29

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

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.

Originally Posted by drone

Would this require

Code:

hidden resource dogs hidden resource pigs

at the top with the sparta line?

No, because the resources aren't hidden.

Originally Posted by drone

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** · 03-03-2005, 15:23

Woof woof snort snort

Originally Posted by 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...

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:

Originally Posted by Kraxis

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:

Code:

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

Originally Posted by Kraxis

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').

Originally Posted by Simetrical

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.

**hrvojej** · 03-03-2005, 16:19

Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

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.

Actually, when you look at them, they are not really pikemen at all. They look like and are more like hoplites - they have shorter spears, larger shields, and a unique soldier model. In short, they are hypaspists, not just run-of-the mill sarissaphoroi, but unfortunatelly had been named "pikemen" which is a bit confusing.

edit:
Speaking of which, do we think we should do something about the mount effect of eastern heavy spearmen (in the text file "east heavy infantry")? They are the only phalanx-capable unit in vanilla that have those. Again, I can see some logic behind it, but it is also fairly obvious that it doesn't fit with the general theme.

**player1** · 03-03-2005, 18:59

Well, I'm only for those fixes that are clear that they are errors.

Anythibng that is shady should not be changed (exempt in the mod). Like many of these oditties from last post.

P.S.
About Thracian bodyguard:
Well, maybe CA though that they only need reskinning after Marius.

**Epistolary Richard** · 03-03-2005, 19:33

Originally Posted by hrvojej

Actually, when you look at them, they are not really pikemen at all. They look like and are more like hoplites - they have shorter spears, larger shields, and a unique soldier model. In short, they are hypaspists, not just run-of-the mill sarissaphoroi, but unfortunatelly had been named "pikemen" which is a bit confusing.

Yes, that was my wrong presumption. I found the following in the unit description:

The tough royal pikemen carry the shorter hoplite thrusting spear

Invisible mounts

Originally Posted by 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.

I don't know if they're impacting the game or not, which is why I've raised it as a discrepancy. As for the "there are so many units that have them therefore it must be intentional" argument, you can make the same argument concerning the dogs & pigs and the horse archers.
No dog or pig unit requires the dog or pig resource, so therefore it was never CA's intention to make them require it. However, in that case, what is the purpose of the dogs and pigs resources?
Horse archers, none of them are able to fire on the move anymore, therefore it must have been CA's intention to limit their abilities from v1.1. Several posters have cogently argued that this in fact was the case. Nevertheless, when v1.2 came out it was considered a bug.

Seleucid Legionaries

Originally Posted by player1

Let's see. Post marius legions have 1.3 mass.
Pre-marius hastati and triarii have mass 1, while principes 1.3, although triaii looks heavier. The points is, that if we start looking all unit masses resonable, there will be lots of disparencies. Similar to units with no shields have shield bonus problem.

It's not a matter of trying to make the mass reasonable with how the unit 'looks', it's a matter of bringing it into line with near identical units, just as we're doing with the Illyrians and the Sarmatians. If you can convince me that CA intended Seleucid legionaries to be mass 1 when Armenian, Numidian and Roman legionaries are mass 1.3 then I'd be happy to agree with you.

**player1** · 03-03-2005, 19:15

About Rolyal Pikemen:

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

**player1** · 03-03-2005, 19:20

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?

**player1** · 03-03-2005, 19:32

Let's see. Post marius legions have 1.3 mass.
Pre-marius hastati and triarii have mass 1, while principes 1.3, although triaii looks heavier.

The points is, that if we start looking all unit masses resonable, there will be lots of disparencies.

Similar to units with no shields have shield bonus problem.

I would leave that to mods, and keep fixes to obvious, easy fixable errors.

**Epistolary Richard** · 03-02-2005, 19:40

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.