Editing battle map modifers does nothing?

**professorspatula** · 03-03-2005, 17:25

I've been trying to mod my game to make it more fun. I'd download someone else's mod but at the moment I'm happy to tailor the game to my own tastes.

Battle speed has been a big concern of mine at the mo, so I added extra morale to all units. That was a nice improvement. Then there were two more things: speed of the units (apparently editable in the descr_battle_map_movement_modifiers.txt file) and killing speed.

So I edit the txt file that is supposed to alter the speed of units depending on the terrain. I made some reductions and tested it out. I thought the changes had worked. Things seemed slower I thought and I was really pleased. However, after some more tinkering, I realised there was no difference in speeds whatsoever.

Using the flat grassland map, I placed one unit of Auxilia, and one enemy unit of Legionaries. I was going to test changes to kill speeds when I noticed something else instead. When I placed my Auxilia at the edge of the deployment zone and started the battle, if I double clicked on the enemy legionaries and timed how long it took for my brave Auxilia to reach 'charging' distance, it would take the same time no matter what changes I made to the text file. Always about 40 seconds. I tried it in snow, no difference.

I then used horses, one light/fast cavalry unit and one heavy/slower cavalry unit. No matter what changes I made to the movement modifiers file they always got across from the edge of the deployment zone to the end of the red line at the other side of the map in one minute 10 seconds. Actually there is a bug of sorts: Group together the fast and slow cavalry unit and both units travel at the speed of the fast unit. Don't group them and the slower cavalry unit takes another 20 seconds to do the journey.

I then edited the grassy flatlands map and added strips with different terrains. Rather than just have grass to test, I added sand, swamp and rock. I then got several units, lined them up on each of the surfaces and had them race to the other side. Each unit reached the end at roughly the same time, despite some supposed to have big movement penalties.

After about 2-3 hours of testing units on different surfaces and maps and finding modding the file did nothing, I gave up defeated. I wondered if the file was supposed to affect not the speed, but the amount of fatigue suffered, but at the end of the sprint, every unit was typically at the same 'warmed up' stage.

Perhaps the file doesn't affect custom games and only campaigns (I haven't tested the campaign battles yet) but as far as I can see, the file does nothing despite many people saying otherwise.

I'm running version 1.2 of RTW. Anyone shed any light on the file and it's effects?

**Myrddraal** · 03-03-2005, 17:38

Its seems to me you've done some pretty good research here. I edited that file, I and I do think it did slow things down. I'm pretty sure it got faster again when I installed a mod which edited this file.

Is my mind playing tricks? Could someone confirm this...

**The_Mark** · 03-03-2005, 19:04

Originally Posted by professorspatula

Group together the fast and slow cavalry unit and both units travel at the speed of the fast unit. Don't group them and the slower cavalry unit takes another 20 seconds to do the journey.

Not good. Not good at all. Actually it's very bad. Does this mean I can just group my catas with one militia cav and go chasing horse archers?

And in the topic, yes, it works for me.

**professorspatula** · 03-03-2005, 19:16

I just tested the Cataphracts and Militia Cavalry. When grouped, the militia cavalry tends to slowly get ahead of the Cataphracts, but not by a great deal. Always towards the end, the faster unit speeds up. When the two units aren't grouped, the Cataphracts lag way behind, as they should do. Both units tired at the same point on the map. When I tested Light Lancers and Macedonian Cavalry (light and heavy cavalry) the gap was even more marginal.

Edit:

Ok so I've tested the terrain modifiers again. For some reason, despite this not being the case when I kept changing the file and saving it and testing it the other day, the file seems to have a real effect on speed now. Regarding snow effect, I now assume it has to be an area of deep snow before the snow modifier kicks in. Merely lightly snow covered grass won't suffice, which is why I presumably never found any speed difference setting the map to winter and having snow fall.

So it appears the file is useful and I apologise for misleading anyone. Like I said, when I first modded the file, I thought the units did move slower, but afterwards any changes I made had no impact. Until now. Excuse me whilst my brain explodes.

**The_Mark** · 03-03-2005, 19:58

Well, I did a quick test by dividing most multipliers by 10, then tried out. And I didn't time it, partly because I'm too lazy and mostly because it would've taken too much time to race them from one end of the map to another. It took just enough time to get them to the enemy with 3x acc.

The file works, for me. Either yours is screwed up or you forgot to save/restart rome while making changes

But it could be the grasslands map, it's quite fishy. You can hide units in some places (the darker ones on the sides). I think there's something wrong with the textures.

And mind you, my first try didn't have any effect; I multiplied only short grass-modifier by 10 for no effect. That could, of course, be some kind of limitation..

Just occurred to me, could the grouping speed problem be caused by the faster cav actually slowing down to keep formation, instead of the opposite?

**professorspatula** · 03-03-2005, 20:05

Originally Posted by The_Mark

Just occurred to me, could the grouping speed problem be caused by the faster cav actually slowing down to keep formation, instead of the opposite?

Nope. If I race the fast unit across the map, it takes 1 minute 10 seconds approximately with the current terrain settings (which are now working for some unknown and strange reason - see my edited post above). The slower unit takes 1 minute 30 seconds. Grouping them, both units take about 1 minute 10. Selecting both and telling them to go to the same place but NOT grouping them, and the fast unit sprints off at the fast pace, and the slower cavalry gets left behind finishing in about 1:30 again. I'll test it again to make sure.

-- Yep, slower cavalry when grouped with faster cavalry will travel at more or less the same speed as the faster horses (until the last 20 metres where the faster cavalry suddenly sprints). I guess a little bit of motivation is all they require to get a move on. I've only tested it with about 3 units together - I'm not sure what happens if you have several units - or even infantry!

**Kraxis** · 03-03-2005, 23:01

Ohhh... bad one there... Fast cats is about the last thing I would like to experience.

I am sure though that the speed modifiers are in fact working. There is acutally a small bug in it since the mud_road uses the mud speed modifier, which makes it hard to give the mud the proper speed as there are mud_roads everywhere.

**The_Mark** · 03-04-2005, 15:02

IE did something strange and crashed as I wrote a reply so here's a short version.

Originally Posted by professorspatula

-- Yep, slower cavalry when grouped with faster cavalry will travel at more or less the same speed as the faster horses (until the last 20 metres where the faster cavalry suddenly sprints). I guess a little bit of motivation is all they require to get a move on. I've only tested it with about 3 units together - I'm not sure what happens if you have several units - or even infantry!

[ranting about bugs]

[confirming the result]

[ranting]

[warning: bug could cause some serious MP exploits, keep this down lads]

Originally Posted by kraxis

I am sure though that the speed modifiers are in fact working. There is acutally a small bug in it since the mud_road uses the mud speed modifier, which makes it hard to give the mud the proper speed as there are mud_roads everywhere.

[ranting about the above and having to re-adjusting the modifiers]

[end of message]

**The_Mark** · 03-04-2005, 16:55

Okay, I did some more tests. It also seems, unfortunately, that infantry is affected by this bug. I'll take a wild guess that a groups movement speed is based on the average speed of its units. Let me explain how I got to this:

Run 1: silver s. legionnaires grouped with peltasts. Both run with same speed. Un-grouped peltasts running alongside them runs faster. Un-grouped legionnaires are slower.

Run 2: silver s. phalanx grouped with peltasts. Similar results with run 1.

Run 3: silver s. legionnaires grouped with greek cav. Group's units run at same speed. Greek cav running alongside runs signicantly faster. Silver s. legionnaires running alongside are significantly slower.

I'm pretty sure that my guess is correct. Which is bad news. Bad. Very bad.BAD.

I'm pretty sure even as I did only one test. Now someone go and prove me wrong. Please.

**professorspatula** · 03-04-2005, 18:44

Right I did a brief bit of testing with infantry myself.

Greek Peltasts, Silver Shield Legionaries and Greek Cavalry.

When grouped together, they try to maintain the same pace. Legionaries lag behind a little. All 3 units grouped sprinting over the same distance I did on the previous tests, and the cavalry took between 1.30-1.45. Infantry followed about 10-15 seconds behind.

The same test, ungrouped. Cavalry races off at 1 minute 10. Peltasts make it 2 minutes 10 or so, and the legionaries in 2 minutes 35.

Seems there is some speed average involved in when in groups. The cavalry was slowed down, but the infantry was speeded up.

When I tested the infantry in a group by themself, the legionaries still lagged way behind.

I then tried 3 fast cavalry and 1 legionaries to see if there was an average speed issue with grouping, whether having a greater number of fast units would increase the speed of the slower unit. The test was inconclusive. At best the legionaries were about 5 seconds faster, although there is always some variance.

***

So the facts:
Slow and fast cavalry grouped together = all cavalry travels fast.

Infantry grouped with Cavalry = Units attempt to keep pace with one another; cavalry runs slower than normal; infantry runs faster than normal.

Fast infantry grouped with slow infantry = minor speed boost for slower unit?

**Lord Adherbal** · 03-04-2005, 19:45

I tested it too, and can confirm this happens.

It's not the end of the world, it's just weird that CA chose to use an average speed and not the speed of the slowest unit (which wouldn't been more obvious)

**Kraxis** · 03-05-2005, 01:55

MP-people will go nuts when this spreads... The slow infantry was almost 1 minute faster than they should be.
Return of the 'foot cavalry' of the American Civil War.