Formation mod

[Kraxis]

Well, yes it would be effective, so it would be a great AI formation. Perhaps that could be made the 'attack' formation while the normal line formation could be the 'defense' formation.

But in historical terms the cavalry was centered behind the infantry to an extent (they were really put on the flanks but in RTW we have to compromise). That way they become both a fast reaction force and a great offensive tool to use with the echelon. Of course if the AI throws that away too fast the whole formation becomes a liability.

So it is up to you. I think the AI will benefit more from your version.

[The_Mark]

The echelon phalanx is quite done, but well... see for yourselves:

AI defends in echelon, skirmishers are getting forward..


After skrimishing they return to their place:


My romans get ready to attack the phalanx, notice how the spears cover phalangites' flanks:


And I'm not going to say what happened after I charged.

Instead, I'll show you another pic, this is what happens when AI tries to attack in echelon:


The echelon defense was a military masterpiece compared to that.

I guess I'll have to tweak the formation extensively if it's going to be any good. On defense it works tolerably, AI was even smart enough to wait until I moved my cavalry to my other flank, leaving my right vulnerable.

/EDIT

Tweaking will not help, I'm afraid. AI just doesn't handle individually blocked phalanxes well enough; when the phalanx is defined as one block AI can barely use it in attack, but when they are separate blocks, it just does't know what to do, so this one will be unusable in attack.

[Simetrical]

That's a shame. I love how the flanks were covered by the spears.

-Simetrical

[The_Mark]

That's a shame. I love how the flanks were covered by the spears.

Yes, it is a shame. Damn AI... It always has to screw something up.

Anyways, I'm now getting suckered up into the EB (well actually I volunteered to get suckered up), so you might see some formed EB armies sometime in the future

And this will probably mean that I stop modding vanilla RTW, so this mod will prolly fade away.

And I'd like to say something about the EB. Those not in the team don't know anything yet, the mod is just beautiful... It's so beautiful.. I could just stare the internal screenies thread for hours.. Be prepared for it, otherwise you might not be able to handle its immense beauty...


Yes, I became one of those "sneaky bastards" :P

[Rodion Romanovich]

Oh.. You were talking about group formations as opposed to army formations.. This mod is about army formations, not group ones. The "heavies on the flanks"-formation is used by AI as an assault formation, when standard line is disabled. One can mod the group formations (in descr_formations.txt), and they are quite similar to army formations, but you'd have to override one of them in order to get a "heavies on the flanks" as a group formation.

Ok, I think I've found a .txt file for that (descr_formations.txt or something), but I have NO idea how to make a formation for heavy infs on flanks and light in the middle. I'd like to override the formation called single sorted line with my formation.

I'd be really thankful if someone could help me with this...

[The_Mark]

Ok, I think I've found a .txt file for that (descr_formations.txt or something), but I have NO idea how to make a formation for heavy infs on flanks and light in the middle. I'd like to override the formation called single sorted line with my formation.

Yes, descr_formations.txt is the group formations, descr_formations_ai.txt is the army formations.

Find this line in descr_formations:
begin_formation ordered_single_line

Block 0 is the center block, 1 is right of center, 2 is left. Just change the unit types to the order you want, e.g. in block 1 add a line

unit_type heavy infantry 1.0

That will assign heavy infantry to block 1, to right of center. Remove the light and missile/skirmish unit type lines from block 1 and only heavy inf will get assigned to block 1.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Yes, descr_formations.txt is the group formations, descr_formations_ai.txt is the army formations.

Find this line in descr_formations:
begin_formation ordered_single_line

Block 0 is the center block, 1 is right of center, 2 is left. Just change the unit types to the order you want, e.g. in block 1 add a line

unit_type heavy infantry 1.0

That will assign heavy infantry to block 1, to right of center. Remove the light and missile/skirmish unit type lines from block 1 and only heavy inf will get assigned to block 1.

Thanks a lot! Now that I saw how easy some parts of modding are, I actually got taste for modding myself. I'm starting a new mod and one of it's aims is to combine several single-feature mods into one big, nice mod where all these single-feature mods are made compatible with each other and easier for the user to install. Info about the mod is posted here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=45319

As I said in that post, I like your formation mod idea and if you're interested I'd like to include your work in that mod. You will of course get all the credits for the formations part of the mod. If you're interested, please post a reply in that thread.

[Kraxis]

Too late I see as you are off to EB.

But maybe these experiences can help you in EB? Try it out here where we can help you set it up properly and then add it to EB... I think that is a great compromise. We get what we want and EB get what it wants. What do you say?

Anyway on a technical point.
The echelon doesn't work on offense but it does on the defense? Good enough for me, I didn't expect it to work perfectly with the AI. Maybe it is better with the player? Well, since the formations can be set to either defence, offense or both I think it is perfectly ok to remove the offense tag and leave it be at defence.

Oh and a point, maybe set the phalanx depth a bit lower. That echelon on defence was in for a bad beating as the Roman formation outstreched it by a whole unit on the forward part. Not good as that gives the Romans a great advantage. The other phalanxes were not into the battle yet but the first one would be outflanked.

Of course this brings in the hypothetical wedge formation, where we eliminate the weak right flank alltogether.
Such a formation would be close to unflankable by anything other than cavalry, due to its depth and width.

[The_Mark]

Well, I'd like to do both, but I don't exactly have too much spare time, so there's going to be some prioritising.. We shall see..

The echelon phalanx does work on defense, what with AI still being bit dumb.

You are right about outstretching, but if there's some reserves on AI's right flank... And if the phalanx is shallowed, it'd essentially cease being an echelon, and this would also close the opening created for cav.

I had a wedge phalanx in my mind, and I might do it later.. With cavalry support that *could* be something that players *might* have to outthink, something I'd like to see much more often.

[Kraxis]

If you strech the individual phalanx blocks then it will still be an echelon, just its footprint will be bigger, meaning your Roman formation won't be able to outflank the poor guys in front rather you have to face the entire formation head on, which is the entire point with this.

Also I think I mentioned that the cavalry could be on both flanks. Protecting one side and being a menace to the other. Anyway the initial echelon looked great and was in my mind a perfect beginning.

So what is your job at EB? I mean you mentioned something about strange formations in EB, so ifthat is what you do then perhaps this could be your testing grounds for the more conventional formations. How would we 'know'?

[The_Mark]

If you strech the individual phalanx blocks then it will still be an echelon, just its footprint will be bigger, meaning your Roman formation won't be able to outflank the poor guys in front rather you have to face the entire formation head on, which is the entire point with this.

Also I think I mentioned that the cavalry could be on both flanks. Protecting one side and being a menace to the other.

Yes, it will be an echelon, but without a proper slope.. But yes, they could be streched a bit further. And I will probably assign a bit cav on the other flank also, with a small infantry reserve.

So what is your job at EB? I mean you mentioned something about strange formations in EB, so ifthat is what you do then perhaps this could be your testing grounds for the more conventional formations. How would we 'know'?

Basicly, implementing the formations. And I didn't mention about strange formations, just that doing forms for EB is different from doing them for vanilla. And nope, I won't be using this for testing, you'll get the forms with EB (Just being the regular EB bastard here )

But if I do some forms purely for vanilla, they'll be posted here.

[Kraxis]

Well hmm ok then.

The echelon doesn't need to be very steep actually. Remember that what we are seeing is a very limited vision of it. THe real echelon wouldn't have been very steep, given the length of line. So by makign the units a bit slimmer it wouldn't hurt the formation anything... At least I think so.

[The_Mark]

Seems that this thread slipped my attention..

You're right, it works as well with wider front(, but I didn't do that by modding, only tried it out in MP.) If I'll have some time I'll try to come up with a couple vanilla forms sometime.

[Kraxis]

Would be nice... Because everytime I try anything the AI tends to screw up badly. So I'm only keeping with the slight priority mod mentioned earlier.

[Ianofsmeg16]

hi, great lookin formations

what about the roman infantry wedge
dont have a clue as to how you would do this, but the roman used the infantry wedge in alot of historically recorded battles e.g against boudicca

again dunno ho you would do it buit you seem to know your stuff, good luck!

[The_Mark]

Because everytime I try anything the AI tends to screw up badly.

I know. It's not capable of anything else than screwing up.

what about the roman infantry wedge

If you're referring to the case where a single unit would form a wedge, akin to the cav wedge, it can be done, but it's not in the scope of this mod. And giving legionnaires wedge ability would prevent them from using testudo.