More realistic battles

[Captn. James Crunch]

I want to make my battles more realistic in terms of length of time, so I want to increase the armour values for every single unit I have. Is there an easier way to do this in EDU or do I have to do it all by hand?

[Monkwarrior]

I want to make my battles more realistic in terms of length of time, so I want to increase the armour values for every single unit I have. Is there an easier way to do this in EDU or do I have to do it all by hand?

You can try a more simple way: increase the hit points of all the units.

Simply choose the option "Replace" of the text editor and replace "stat_health 1" by "stat_health 2".

Soldiers will have to receive two hits to die, and battles should last longer.

[Kuni]

monkwarrior, that's a good simple solution. and may I say I found that your tut on changing faction banners was most helpful.

cap'n crunch, if you want to go the health route, replace "stat_health 2" with "stat_health 3" before you do monkwarrior's suggestion, so that the berserkers and bodyguards won't become on a level health playing field with the units you're going to power up.

[Monkwarrior]

monkwarrior, that's a good simple solution. and may I say I found that your tut on changing faction banners was most helpful.

cap'n crunch, if you want to go the health route, replace "stat_health 2" with "stat_health 3" before you do monkwarrior's suggestion, so that the berserkers and bodyguards won't become on a level health playing field with the units you're going to power up.

Thanks

To the second part, yes if you want to keep the difference. We are using that system in the final version of Iberia Total War, 3 hit points for generals, 2 for the rest of units.

[Captn. James Crunch]

Sweet, thanks people.

[s_tabikha]

No,thats a stupid idea.
That makes anyother units that previously had 2 hit points equal to everyone else.
do it manuualy
i did

[Aradan]

Or you can just as easily lower the lethality values of every unit... Values under 0.4 will create some nice, long battles between equal units.

[lt1956]

I suggest doing both, Originally making higher armour worked fine, until the 1.3 and 1.5 patches when CA decided to change the AI archer units reaction to armoured units. Now the archers will NOT fire on units in which there armour counters their attack rating. lol So this made the AI archers not fire on heavy units. I think its still a bug as the vanilla with the patch wouldnt fire on certain units.

The way around this atleast for me is as Monkwarrior suggest change the hit points to 2, 3 seems to be too much and 2 about right. I also suggest decreasing the hit ability from 1 to .06 or so, this allows for some REALLY long battles. SPQR is the only md since its beginning that focused on Very Long battles. This works for SPQR and should work for you.

I hope CA never releases another patch for RTW because each time they do they break something else that worked or remove a feature for us. Example would be certain BI features working in RTW, that wasnt done on purpose and if they did another patch I am sure they would remove those abilities. Loyalty, recruitable generals, Night battles, rebellion characters, etc.

Lt1956

[s_tabikha]

what about elephants?
and gennerals?
elephants have like ten

[Mad Hoplite]

I don't know how much do you want to extend the battles. Personally, doubling the stat mental in export_descr_unit made wonders for me.

Troops still rout, but now they need more than a bunch of burning arrows to flee.

[Aradan]

True, but then you got some unrealistic behaviour like militias holding against elites for quite long plus morale doesn't prevent the killing from happening faster... It justs stops units from routing so fast.
Imho the best way to make battles longer without any need to mess with hitpoints (which require futher balancing if they get tweaked) is just reducing lethality. Works wonders and it's side-effects are minimal, even in worst case scenarios.