Oh dear....The unbeatable RTW 1.3 Spear Warbands

**player1** · 10-08-2005, 10:32

Why are they unbeatable?

Look stats:

Code:

type             warband spear german
dictionary       warband_spear_german      ; Spear Warband
category         infantry
class            spearmen
voice_type       Light_1
soldier          warband_spearman_german, 60, 0, 1.2
officer          barb_standard
attributes       sea_faring, hide_improved_forest
formation        1, 1, 2, 2, 5, square, phalanx
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         9, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  3, 3, 5, leather
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        3
stat_ground      2, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      4, impetuous, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 510, 200, 60, 80, 510
ownership        germans

See something missing?
Yes secondary attack.
This forces the game to use same phalanx stats for them even outside phalanx (including when flanked or so), not to mention that if you try to fight with them outside phalanx that they have sillty attacking animation (bashing with spears up in the air).

The fix:

Code:

stat_pri         9, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec         5, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no

I reverse engineered secondary stats by looking other phalanx unit. Those with attack of 9 have secondary stat of 5, and all of them have charge bonus lower for one point then showed in primary attack.

**Jambo** · 10-08-2005, 10:52

Player 1, will you be making a general bug fixer (i.e. not tweaker) for BI/1.3 at some point again?

Also, do you think it would be useful to have a thread opened just for the standard text file fixe such as this one, the Spanish general, the rebel archer, etc, etc...?

**player1** · 10-08-2005, 11:34

Originally Posted by Jambo

Player 1, will you be making a general bug fixer (i.e. not tweaker) for BI/1.3 at some point again?

Maybe...
Currently I'm busy actually playing BI and having some fun, so it's not 1st priority (in the meantime I do notice and report bugs I find).

And also Civ4 is close and I'm Civ addict.

Originally Posted by Jambo

Also, do you think it would be useful to have a thread opened just for the standard text file fixe such as this one, the Spanish general, the rebel archer, etc, etc...?

Definetly, that's one of the things that gave me inspiration to compile the fixes.

**Ciaran** · 10-08-2005, 13:58

Well, then BI also changes a lot of statistics, because in v.1.2 the German spear warband do have a secondary weapon (a knife or very short sword) and use it. That spear_bonus attribute is new as well.

**player1** · 10-08-2005, 14:35

Lack of seconday attribute is bug that creeped from 1.0 version (fixed in 1.2 too).

**The Stranger** · 10-08-2005, 11:18

Originally Posted by player1

Why are they unbeatable?

Look stats:

Code:

type             warband spear german
dictionary       warband_spear_german      ; Spear Warband
category         infantry
class            spearmen
voice_type       Light_1
soldier          warband_spearman_german, 60, 0, 1.2
officer          barb_standard
attributes       sea_faring, hide_improved_forest
formation        1, 1, 2, 2, 5, square, phalanx
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         9, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec         0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  3, 3, 5, leather
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        3
stat_ground      2, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental      4, impetuous, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 510, 200, 60, 80, 510
ownership        germans

See something missing?
Yes secondary attack.
This forces the game to use same phalanx stats for them even outside phalanx (including when flanked or so), not to mention that if you try to fight with them outside phalanx that they have sillty attacking animation (bashing with spears up in the air).

The fix:

Code:

stat_pri         9, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    spear, spear_bonus_8
stat_sec         5, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no

I reverse engineered secondary stats by looking other phalanx unit. Those with attack of 9 have secondary stat of 5, and all of them have charge bonus lower for one point then showed in primary attack.

yup that must be it...i dont have BI but the problem ussually lies in forgotten things in the txt files.

and gaul only has warbands no spearwarbands wich are phalanx units

**Puzz3D** · 10-08-2005, 15:15

Originally Posted by The Stranger

yup that must be it...i dont have BI but the problem ussually lies in forgotten things in the txt files.

and gaul only has warbands no spearwarbands which are phalanx units

Gaul has spear warbands in v1.3. They aren't quite as strong as the german spear warbands:

type barb infantry gaul
dictionary barb_infantry_gaul ; Warband
category infantry
class light
voice_type Light_1
soldier barb_infantry_longshield, 60, 0, 1.2
officer barb_standard
attributes sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, warcry
formation 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 5, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 7, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,0.73
stat_pri_attr light_spear, spear_bonus_4
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 3, 2, 5, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 3
stat_ground 2, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental 4, impetuous, untrained
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 420, 200, 50, 70, 420
ownership gauls

The lack of a secondary weapon is obviously intentional.

I would remove phalanx ability from german spear warband. The animation is then correct, and principes defeat them in melee. Without shooting pila, I got this battle result in cusom battle on flat ground after removing phalanx abilty from the german spear warband:

principes: cost 490, chg/att/def = 2/7/16, 82 men deployed, 94 kills
german spear warband: cost 510, chg/att/def = 5/9/11, 122 men deployed, 49 kills

**CBR** · 10-08-2005, 16:52

I just ran a series of 1.2/1.3 tests and if there is one difference then it would be that 1.3 phalanx units are less likely to do silly wheeling while engaged. As long as they dont do that then there were no real difference between 1.2 and 1.3 that I noticed. Frontal fighting is deadly for the Hastati in both versions.

Going up to VH in 1.3 turned the fight into a quick rout for the Hastati.

Giving the Warband a secondary weapon doesnt seem to change the overall result either.

So I guess that means you just have to careful now the difficulties work properly

CBR

**player1** · 10-08-2005, 19:14

Originally Posted by Puzz3D

Gaul has spear warbands in v1.3. They aren't quite as strong as the german spear warbands

They are not Spear Warbands. They are warbands with spear. Big difference, since Spear Warbands are phalanx unit.

Originally Posted by Puzz3D

I would remove phalanx ability from german spear warband. The animation is then correct, and principes defeat them in melee. Without shooting pila, I got this battle result in cusom battle on flat ground after removing phalanx abilty from the german spear warband

I would think otherwise since that has you just get same gaul warband, but for some reason difference stats.

Why would german warband have higher attack then gaulish one?