Pros and cons of killrate modding alternatives

[WesW]

Many people like RTW 1.2 and feels its potential... and at the same time are somehow frustrated that vanilla is not fulfilling this potential.

One aspect of the game that all mods are trying to change is the killrate: everyone seem to lower it, and in my opinion, although most mods are actually successfull in lowering kill rate, the aftermath is somehow worse...

What have been tried so far....

- change HP
- change defence stat
- delay between attack
- change lethality
- change mental stat (although it does not change kill rate, it keeps unit fighting longer)

Either mods have gone too far changing those factors, and by tweaking them differently a better compromise can be achieved, or something is missing on that list....

What are the pros and cons of those methods for you? How would you do it? Which one is your favorite?

Hi guys. This is my first post regarding the modding of Rome, so forgive me if I am a little rusty regarding some of the stats.
From what I have read about the various unit bonuses and the complexity of the overall combat system, as well as my experience modding Medieval, I would generally discourage altering the base attack or defence stats. You have a lot of factors that enter into the overall formula for a battle between given units, and anything other than a wholistic approach is going to skew the stew, so to speak. An alteration that improves things between Hastati and Phalanx might screw things up between Hastati and Warbands, for example.
Typically, the various aspects of the battle system are developed separately, and only combined right before release. This means that the individual components commonly make sense when taken separately, but can become skewed when thrown into the pot with all the other ingredients that make up combat "stew".
Therefore, try and find factors that have the least interaction with other components, and which pertain to those fundamental issues which you noticed when you were just beginning to understand the game's mechanics.
One trait I have come to highly value when modding is naivete in regards to game flaws. By that, I mean the things that bothered you when you were still fairly new to the game, and had not developed any preconceived notions about what things "should" be like. I just started playing Rome a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully I am at a pretty good point as far as noticing the basic things that bug me about battles, before I get good enough at the game where I began to see all the little things that affect the outcome. I have found that if you can identify and correct those fundamental settings, it will also correct many of the secondary issues, at least well enough to get by.

Using these principles, the first issue I would address is unit speed. Even using Large unit sizes, galloping cavalry units can go from one end of the battle line to the other in about 3 seconds, which is barely manageable even if your "twitch" reflex is to hit the Pause button every few seconds of realtime. Time and again I have looked up to see a cavalry unit hitting me from the rear which wasn't even near the battlefield only a few seconds earlier.
I have't studied the Rome stats yet, but in Medieval the stats for one of the basic spear units were MARCH_SPEED( 6), RUN_SPEED( 9), CHARGE_SPEED( 10), while those for the cavalry units were basically MARCH_SPEED( 9), RUN_SPEED( 21), CHARGE_SPEED( 23).
If I had to guess, I'd say the Rome settings for cavalry are a comparative 30 Run and 36 Charge, which is ridiculous even given those weird circular movements during mop-up. (Whenever I see something that appears so obviously skewed, I try and figure out what happened, and I think that the cavalry speed was set for the pursuit manouver, rather than the run and charge modes.)
Speed is also relatively unrelated to other combat factors, so you should have a minimum of unforseen complications.

On a related issue, I also think that the developers decided to half the size of unit sprites, as well as unit size, in order to facilitate urban combat.
One of the first things I noticed about the new maps was how huge individual trees were. Then I noticed how the terrain seemed to swallow up the armies, especially with the comparatively bland maps compared to Medieval. Then you have the movement speed issue, and even the inordinate space between units in the default formations.

If you think about it, increasing the size of the sprites would address all of these problems, though I think cavalry speed would still need to be adjusted. I have this theory that units were supposed to form up in column formation during urban assaults, ala those manning the siege engines, but that CA decided to go away from this for some reason, which has resulted in havoc in other parts of the game.
I have heard so much about how CA has nerfed up battles, which are the heart of the game, and which they had such a good handle on with Medieval, so I have to figure that it's due to a problem with integrating one of the new aspects of the game, and street battles are the most complex and tricky addition to the combat system.

Changing lethality sounds like a good option, though slowing down casualities is going to exacerbate any speed issues.

Slowing down the attack rate may not be good if it's not uniform between all unit types. This may also affect the delay in reacting to orders.

From what I have seen, units don't rout unless they get in appropriately bad situations, which is what Red alluded to; the problem is that either the AI sends them into awful situations much too often due to poor scripting, or that they get into such situations all too often due to the speed issues (both yours and the AI units). I would wait until you have tried adjusting the other factors, and see if improving them doesn't render the morale issue mute.

Nice to see you back on the forums, Red. (Btw, as a point of advice for you other guys, Red generally knows what he's talking about, and scoffing at his observations can often end up making you look like an ass.)