The Complete EDU Guide - Discussion

**Lysander13** · 10-01-2007, 19:11

Originally Posted by Aradan

No, we didn't change anything in our EDU for that purpose. Sin's formations are very flexible in this regard. But that could depend also on the specifics of your game's EDU. The only suggestion I could perhaps make is to make your horse-archers formation less wide, because with Sin's formations they really tend to try and flank/envelop your infantry and being narrower makes them more versatile.

Thanks for the tip. One more question if i could and pardon if it's a tad bit off topic. Have any FATW players reported occasions of an "idle" reinforcing army using Sin's formations?

**Aradan** · 10-01-2007, 20:47

I don't think any have, but I have seen it happening some times. But i have seen it hapenning with vanilla and Darth too. I have restricted it a bit by changing some offsets, but I don't think there's a way to solve it completely, due to the way the formations are coded - and the lack of a descrimination between normal and reinforcing armies.

**Makanyane** · 10-01-2007, 21:03

another topic that might be relevant to this:

I've been having trouble with the 'Abilities at a Glance' section of the units info screen not showing up, have pinned it down to an extent as being to do with the selection of the stat_ground bonuses, problem seems to be mainly to do with having -1 and -1 for forest and snow (the last two figures) eg:
stat_ground 1, 2, -1, -1
though some other permutations seems to be doing it to me as well. The full EDU entry for the unit that definitely isn't working is:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

has anyone else experienced that or got any ideas as to why that would be happening?

P.S. attributes like "can form shield wall" are showing up fine in custom battle selection they just don't appear on the unit info screen for that unit....

**Aradan** · 10-01-2007, 22:32

I don't think this has to do with the ground modifiers... Can you try to add two more attributes to the unit? Re shield-wall, all looks fine here. And I think formation abilities always show up at the top, so that can't be lack of space in the 'abilities' section... Weird.

**Red Spot** · 10-01-2007, 23:47

the only thing I can spot on the go is that in vanilla Rome (guessing its the same for BI) every unit except siege-engines has the atribute;
-hide_forest, or
-hide_improved_forest

=======

**5 minutes and to custom-battles further down the line ....**

Mak you again are the finder of little oddities ..;)
see my lvl3 archer here, hadnt even noticed this before;

I can assure you they "can sap" as do their lvl2 brothers wich also show they can .... (similair units-stats, but +1attack, +2armour)

the stats;

Code:

type             roman archer auxillia
dictionary       roman_archer_auxillia      ; Archer Auxilia
category         infantry
class            missile
voice_type       Medium_1
soldier          roman_archer_auxillia, 50, 0, 0.4
officer          roman_early_standard
mount_effect     elephant +8
attributes       sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, hide_long_grass, can_sap
formation        0.8, 1.2, 1.2, 1.6, 3, square
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         8, 1, arrow, 170, 50, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         3, 1, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, knife, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  8, 5, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 1, flesh
stat_heat        0
stat_ground      2, 0, 3, 1
stat_mental      10, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 15
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 260, 80, 40, 60, 260
ownership        roman


type             roman archer auxillia ii
dictionary       roman_archer_auxillia_ii      ; Archer Auxilia II
category         infantry
class            missile
voice_type       Medium_1
soldier          roman_archer_auxillia_ii, 50, 0, 0.5
officer          roman_standard
mount_effect     elephant +8
attributes       sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, hide_long_grass, can_sap, hardy
formation        0.8, 1.2, 1.2, 1.6, 3, square
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         9, 1, arrow, 180, 60, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         3, 1, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, knife, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  10, 6, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 1, flesh
stat_heat        1
stat_ground      2, 0, 3, 1
stat_mental      12, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 15
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 320, 100, 50, 75, 320
ownership        roman

G

**Aradan** · 10-02-2007, 00:58

Red Spot, I think the dissappearence of your "can sap" there is because there are no more 'abilities' slots left. The last slot of your Legionary Archers' abilities is taken by "hardy".

**Red Spot** · 10-02-2007, 01:27

reading between the lines I take it that you mean I can only assigne 4 atributes, or do you mean only 4 will show up in the "at a glance" bit??

anyway as example an "vanilla" upgraded general;

Code:

type             carthaginian general's cavalry
dictionary       carthaginian_generals_cavalry      ; General's Armoured Bodyguard
category         cavalry
class            heavy
voice_type       General_1
soldier          carthaginian_royal_cavalry, 12, 0, 1
mount            generals horse
mount_effect     elephant -8, camel -4
attributes       sea_faring, general_unit, hide_forest, hardy, general_unit_upgrade
formation        1.5, 4, 3, 6, 3, square
stat_health      2, 0
stat_pri         11, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         12, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  11, 7, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 1, flesh
stat_heat        0
stat_ground      0, 1, -6, -1
stat_mental      10, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 1040, 80, 110, 160, 1040
ownership        carthage, spain, numidia

thats 5 atributes, though ofcourse most normally dont show up in the "at a glance" bit ...

more testing to do .......

Edit;
still havent done the archer thing, but there are a few things I've experianced in combat based on a few simple EDU tweaks that I tought might be interesting, dont know for sure if I should post it here .... anyway ..

-setting charge distance for regular infantry to something like 15 and spear to ~5 makes them charge in a much smoother "grouped" fashion, keeping unit formation intact even in the charge, even with my formation withs (0.8,1.2inf--0.8,0.8spear)
I was actually impressed by their charge and it "seemed"(untested) to reflect in combat-results as well

G

**Lysander13** · 10-02-2007, 03:19

Originally Posted by Aradan

I don't think any have, but I have seen it happening some times. But i have seen it hapenning with vanilla and Darth too. I have restricted it a bit by changing some offsets, but I don't think there's a way to solve it completely, due to the way the formations are coded - and the lack of a descrimination between normal and reinforcing armies.

I've never actually seen it happen with Sinuhet's; I've seen it in vanilla and Darth's but only when i was tinkering with a few things and i omitted his width forcing while using huge unit sizes. I ask because it's been mentioned to me a few times. Must be just one of those weird things i haven't seen yet. Thanks for the cavalry tip...I'm gonna narrow down some of the cavalry formations in the EDU a bit and see if i like the angles they take a little better.

**Aradan** · 10-02-2007, 22:32

np Lysander. I've read the comments on your EB formations thread. If you find out what's causing this effect, please share!

@ Red Spot: Yep, small charge distance values seem to work well for infantry, but they are dependent on the ground-type speed modifiers. If they are too high some units that have slow charging animations might have some problems. Generally such things need tweaking according the specifics of the mod.

I *think* that the unit card only displays up to 7 abilities at a glance. It's not the number of attributes in the EDU, it's the actual number of displayed messages on the card.

The "can_sap" one seems to be problematic, as it seems to hide the abilities section completely if it's not coded along with at least 3 more attributes...

Anyone else having this issue (besides Mak obviously)?

**Makanyane** · 10-02-2007, 22:50

I haven't checked the can_sap bit, will do that tomorrow. But I can definitely fix my problem on an off with that unit I posted solely by changing the forest terrain modifier from -1 to -2 ! Thats what I meant by having pinned down to terrain modifier, though it might be an odd quirk that means that only applies combined with the other problem..... definitely

**Red Spot** · 10-02-2007, 23:01

Aradan, I know(still apreciate you mentioning it), my groundtype modifiers are ~at 0.8 wich makes eg legionaries able to get trow a pilum before getting charged by cavalry (in general!), didnt post that as I figured it was relativly "general info" :D
(imo at ~0.8 is pretty good "allround" higher and certain animations are too slow to prevent AI/player imbalances, too low and animations get ugly as it looks like a unit is running its behind of while it hardly is moving (+ that it over-balances ranged units)

I agree that 7 seems to be the magic number, my lvl3(+) units never show more than a total of 7 where some should imo at least show 8 ....
Interesting though that the sapping ability is the one causing problems, I'd sooner be looking at like the turtle formation(just try to use it on other units ..:P)

G

**Makanyane** · 10-14-2007, 21:00

Re: my earlier comments on the 'abilities at a glance' on the unit info screens not turning up - I haven't got a conclusive reason but can give some examples

Unit with:
attributes sea_faring, can_sap
and
stat_ground 1, 1, -1, -1
does NOT have abilities shown in screen.

Unit with:
attributes hide_forest, can_sap
and
stat_ground 1, 1, -1, -1
DOES have abilities shown in screen, Red Spot was on to something with that..

but also
Unit with:
attributes sea_faring, can_sap
and
stat_ground 1, 1, -2, -1
DOES have abilities shown in screen.

Unit with:
attributes sea_faring, druid, can_swim, can_sap
and
stat_ground 1, 1, -1, -1
does NOT have abilities shown in screen, but if you switch sea_faring to hardy it does work

but also;
Unit with:
attributes sea_faring, druid, can_swim, can_sap
and
stat_ground 1, 1, -2, -1
DOES have abilities shown in screen

also
Unit with:
attributes hardy, druid, can_sap
and
stat_ground 1, 1, -1, -1
DOES have abilities shown in screen, though have noticed that the druid attribute isn't mentioned - not sure if it ever is?

I'm a little lost as to what the linkage is between combinations that do work and ones that don't! Could anyone else have a look and see if they can confirm any of this and come up with some idea why...

**Charge** · 10-14-2007, 22:53

From little testing I've done, with attributes sea_faring, can_sap (or only sea_faring) 'abilities at a glance' shows if I have any parameter in stat_ground 3, or -2. Though if they dont shows, they applies anyway, at least my gallic swordsman with 0,0,0,0 was clearly beaten by britons with 0,2,0,0 in desert.
So use any hide_forest or any other attributes to make abilities visible, or for non-hideable units big "-" in stat_ground...