EB units with BI don't have shield wall or swim!

[Basileus Seleukeia]

Well, as you can guess from the thread title, I have just installed EB over BI, everything works fine but strangely no unit has shield wall or swimming ability!
Do you know what I did wrong? Or could someone send me an export_descr_unit file with these abilitys?

[Teleklos Archelaou]

It's because EB isn't designed for BI or with the BI features in mind. If someone alters the EDU to give units those abilities, it would work, but the team itself is making the mod for 1.5 instead.

Question though: if those attributes are put into a 1.5 build, does it crash or just ignore them or what?

[blacksnail]

This is because EB is developed for 1.5 and does not include BI-specific features. Although people have figured out how to get it to work under the BI exe, we did not develop 0.81a for use with the BI engine. Any BI-specific update would need to be released as an EB mini-mod.

[blacksnail]

Question though: if those attributes are put into a 1.5 build, does it crash or just ignore them or what?

We can test it to see. If it doesn't actually cause any errors, we might look into the feasibility of including them for the next major release.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Yeah, that would be nice actually. If it does cause problems, maybe we could still implement it, then comment it out with something like:

;GAH

And folks could run a search to remove all ";GAH" entries in the file to quickly make it work. Or something like that. The problem might be that none of us play BI that I know of. Or at least no one talks about it.

[Mordecai]

It's not that hard if you want to do it.

All you have to do is Back up you export_descr_units file then you open the one in EB/data and add

, can swim
to all the units that you want to swim

, shield_wall

to all the units you want to have shield wall at the end of the line that begins with formation. The explanation at the top of your export_descr_units file in your BI/Data folder should tell you everything you need to know

[abou]

The problem is, in what conceivable event would someone willingly swim in the middle of a battle. Not to mention what it could do to equipment like bows, but you would be left so vulnerable to attack that it would be absolutely ridiculous to expose yourself like that.

[hoom]

Shield wall unbalances units that use it.

Because it gives a combat boost, any mod that enables shield wall will need to drop the stats for the units to bring back balance.

[Basileus Seleukeia]

It's because EB isn't designed for BI or with the BI features in mind. If someone alters the EDU to give units those abilities, it would work, but the team itself is making the mod for 1.5 instead.

Question though: if those attributes are put into a 1.5 build, does it crash or just ignore them or what?

Well, afaik XGM also has this in the Export_descr_unit and it didn't crash for me, so I think it works.

[blacksnail]

Shield wall unbalances units that use it.

Because it gives a combat boost, any mod that enables shield wall will need to drop the stats for the units to bring back balance.

Odds are that a shield-wall would only make it in with an EB mini-mod, then. The swim attribute sounds more like we could add it with few issues to gameplay. Obviously this is all tentative and requires testing and is not a definite addition to the next version, but we'll definitely look into it.

[Domitius Ulpianus]

Anyway the Hoplite formations in EB , I mean the tightly packed position of trooops, is good enough imho as a "shield wall" simulation.

[Watchman]

The problem is, in what conceivable event would someone willingly swim in the middle of a battle. Not to mention what it could do to equipment like bows, but you would be left so vulnerable to attack that it would be absolutely ridiculous to expose yourself like that.

Light cavalry, for example. And light infantry (assuming they now know to swim in the first place) as well. I can see it as a potentially useful tactical gambit in a riverine battle to outflank an enemy force tied down defending the actual crossing points, and weren't some Iberian caetrati downright famous for having along inflatable pig-bladders to assist in crossing watercourses ?

And by what I recall from BI, swimming units are indeed horribly vulnerable both in the water and when they emerge on the bank so it's not something you want to try with meaningful enemy opposition around.

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Does the AI use it to make bridge battles less horribly lopsided for the human player? Like if they didn't try to push every single unit over the bridge anymore?

[Watchman]

Isn't that (again) up to descr_formations_ai.txt ?

[Will_YouFight_ForME]

come on come onnn make a mod some one
pleaseee

shield wall would be perfect for the roman units!

[Zarax]

IF the EB team is interested it's quite easy to make separate descr unit files, all they need to do is to put an option in the installer to choose which exe you need...
This might cause some extra balancing work but in the end BI users would really appreciate the freedom of choice, although I admit this is quite easier to do when you use a smaller mod like XGM...

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

come on come onnn make a mod some one
pleaseee

shield wall would be perfect for the roman units!

The Romans will most definately not use shieldwall, except for Camillian Triarii, of course.

[Watchman]

...and those guys are "imitation hoplites" anyway.

[Gask]

The Romans will most definately not use shieldwall, except for Camillian Triarii, of course.

Well tetsudo would be neat. But the ai has problems with it right?

[Watchman]

The appropriate Roman units can already Do The Turtle. 'S a vanilla formation after all.

[antisocialmunky]

Does the AI use it to make bridge battles less horribly lopsided for the human player? Like if they didn't try to push every single unit over the bridge anymore?

Yes and no.

Yes, if units can swim across and flank you because the AI lines them up on the opposite bank and then swims across at different points. No, because most 'heavy' infantry can't swim and if I have heavy infantry on the banks, the AI is screwed. Though, swimming Gaestrae would probably give the celts a good prospect for victory. Also no, because if an exhausted unit is swiming, it'll start drowning... Chances are better than trying to rout past your units but still.

[Conqueror]

It does force the player to spread his own units out instead of concentrating them all on the bridge/crossing point. If he only has a small army then this might be significant, but a player defending with a full stack is going to butcher the AI either way.

[Bonny]

Question though: if those attributes are put into a 1.5 build, does it crash or just ignore them or what?

It crashes on startup.

[Zarax]

It should ignore them, at least id does with formations and swimming...