The Complete EDU Guide - Discussion

**xerex** · 07-22-2007, 06:27

Originally Posted by tk-421

Hi! I am one of EB's stat guys and I'd just like to say that you've done an excellent job so far. I've been experimenting with the stat_ground values and have recently been speculating that the scrub bonus could be seriously messed up - possibly giving a bonus in more terrain types (or possibly all terrain types) than it really should. I haven't done as many tests on this as I like and, as it says in the guide, it can be difficult to tell when exactly you are fighting on scrub, so it's entirely possible that I'm imagining things. Does anyone have any good data on this? I'd be very happy to know what others think about this.

I was the one that did the terrain testing mostly and yes, scrub is a pain in the butt. All the other terrains work perfectly and you can clearly tell when you are in them. Scrub, however, is very sketchy. A map can be almost entirely plains with a little patch of scrub and if your unit is fighting on that piece of scrub, it will own. Moving 20 meters to the right makes your unit fight much worse. Scrub can be generally described as "rough" terrain, but pinning down exactly which terrain types are considered scrub requires that I first learn more about how the battle maps are set up which will take some time because I am quite dumb and overloaded at work.

You may also be experiencing stacking of terrain bonuses. I dont remember if terrain bonuses stacked. I think I remember testing it, but it wasn't in the guide. Let me look into it and see if terrain bonuses stack.

**mcantu** · 07-23-2007, 19:08

Didnt CA say previously that the spear attribute gave +4 attack vs cavalry? The guide says +8

**Aradan** · 08-06-2007, 01:10

Well, CA has occassionally said things that weren't 100% accurate. The spear bonus vs cavalry is 8. Perhaps Jerome said that the general bonus was +4 (+8 vs cav and -4 vs inf = 4) ?

@ tk-421 : Tested a bit more and I still get what I got in the complementary tests I did after Xerex made the 'base' ones: scrub-modifier only gives its bonus on scrub, not on any other ground-types. We're lucky to have an entirely scrub-covered map in FATW and we can know for sure what ground we fight on. As Xerex said, it's a low-grass, arid climate that is between rocky, desert and plains. Not very illuminating, but I hope it helps a bit. I'd imagine your Baktrian provinces would have it, but again I'm not a mapper.

A slight update in the guide, added "skirmish" as an option for class. It's not used at all in vanilla, but it could be useful, especially for formation guys that don't want to go the long way round (if there is anyone else except for me that's actually bothering with battlefield AI, that is).

**Lysander13** · 08-07-2007, 18:47

Originally Posted by Aradan

A slight update in the guide, added "skirmish" as an option for class. It's not used at all in vanilla, but it could be useful, especially for formation guys that don't want to go the long way round (if there is anyone else except for me that's actually bothering with battlefield AI, that is).

Firstly, let me say this is a great guide.

So skirmish is a valid option class, is that in both 1.5 and 1.6? When you say it could be useful for formation guys that don't want to go the long way around, what do you mean exactly? I'm curious as to how do you use the tag as it's relative to the priority awarded within the formation? For example let's say if missile gets .8 or .7 do you go higher or lower? or do you even play with the priority at all if your using a battle AI mod like Darth or Sinuhet; rather your just changing the unit class in the edu?

**Aradan** · 08-07-2007, 23:02

Thx.

Well the long way round is to have a block containing "missile infantry" with low priority and another one containing only "ranged_missile_infantry" with higher one, so that skirmishers will end up in the first block. It's not a perfect way, but it's acceptable. While now you can use "skirmish infantry" and it will work perfectly. I know vanilla, Sin and Darth already use it, but they always use it along with "missile infantry" for their interception-line-block and they use "ranged_missile_infantry" alone for the archer-block, so that skirmishers always end up in the first-line. I made a custom formation not a week ago and I had assigned only "skirmish infantry" in the first block with a minimum of two such units. I gave the formation a high priority (it was a defensive one, so it would be selected for deployment) and made sure all the other requirements were met, but guess what: the formation was never chosen. When I changed a unit's class from missile to skirmish, the formation was selected.

Note that perhaps the class isn't fully supported (I can't understand why it wasn't included in vanilla otherwise) and it needs further testing.

**Lysander13** · 08-08-2007, 03:42

Thanks for the "long way round" explanation. That was actually a pretty dumb question on my part. For some reason i was reading something else into what you posted. I should have known immediately what you meant by it.

In your custom formation; when you say you changed a unit's class from missile to skirmish and the formation was selected (defend); do you literally mean you changed 1 unit's class and the formation was selected, even though you had assigned that first block a minimum of two such units?

**Aradan** · 08-08-2007, 12:41

It wasn't dumb.

I changed a unit's (unit = EDU entry) class from 'missile infantry' to 'skirmish infantry', and then I used two 'instances' of that unit in my army. How else would the formation be selected?!