Something that might be helpful

[Zarax]

Apparently there might be a way to emulate desertion and diseases for marching armies.
As we don't have enough time/manpower to research alone in XGM I think you guys could be interested: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...24#post2564824

[bovi]

That sounds very interesting but I think not something we'd want to spend time on for EB1, as we want to turn focus to EB2. Has anyone seen a similar effect in M2TW? I know I haven't had anything like that happen in either vanilla or any mod, RTW or M2TW. But I haven't played M2TW much at all.

[Zarax]

Well, it could be a quick fix for desert areas at least...
As it seems to require relatively few changes I think it would be worth spending some time testing...

[bovi]

Well, if it's just to change descr_climates, as RedFox says, it would certainly be a feature we'd want to add. But I fear that it would not be so straightforward, and that it would require quite a bit of time to test. I would have done so myself if I had the time and energy, not to mention lack of other stuff waiting in the tech help forum. I can guarantee that we would take part in any effort to find research any similar effect in M2TW!

[Goth47]

I experimented with this a few months ago as its something i would like to make work , I really dislike the idea of armies besieging cities in deserts for years and suffering no losses.
The idea i had was using the traits system to emulate losses but i am not experienced at trait coding and it would have the disadvantage of only applying to armies with characters.
However this idea of using the descr_climate sounds interesting.

Goth

[Zarax]

I'll try looking into it next week and report to you guys...
Talking about reports... Is Tanit still around? We started a discussion about some nuragic sources but I never managed to find him again...

[Goth47]

I will start experimenting with it too. If the team agrees i have no problem with exchanging info on this.

Goth

[unreal_uk]

Well the desertion effect is certainly in M2TW, since it affects armies specifically called for Crusades. If you make no real discernible progress toward your Crusade goal, you'll eventually start losing men as they lose faith in you and desert, so there's at least some workable mechanic there.

[bovi]

Yes, but I believe that makes entire units defect, which isn't really what we want, I think. I think that a number of soldiers in the various units should die off from spending time in difficult terrain such as a desert in summer or the mountains in the north in winter, or running out of provisions.

[pezhetairoi]

Is there some way we can use the plague scripting on armies in the field? Sorta like a conditional disaster? Hmm.

[Hooahguy]

i agree w/ pez- if an army is on campaign for, lets say, a year, and the general has bad logistics, then his men should get the plauge and start to die

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

A few turns ago I simulated dying from thirst by disbanding some 120 Liby-Phoenicians out of 440.

[I of the Storm]

The plague idea is really interesting. Would it work to script an infection at a certain stage of the "unsupplied"-chain? If so, it would only work with FM led armies and there's a good chance that you'll loose your FM. Captain led armies would be unaffected. But it all depends whether the plague can be brought upon characters by script or only upon cities (like in the vanilla makedonian plague).

[Lusted]

I was so intrigued by the possibility of attrition in the desert that i decided to test it in Medieval II Total War. In descr_climates.txt, i set heat to 8 for sandy_desert, and set the stat_heat value for all Egyptian units to 5. 11 turns into a campaign with some units just stood out in the desert, they have suffered attrition.

So there is attrition in deserts in Rome and Medieval II, if a unit has a high stat_heat value and is the desert for a long time. Or at least there appears to be from my short test.

[Goth47]

I set heat level in descr_climates to 8 for sandy deserts in eb and in bi. Kept my units in the desert for 15 turns with not a single man lost. I will however experiment further.

Goth

[Lusted]

Yes only playing further with additional armies i didn't see any other attrition, yet there is still the fact there was an army of mine in the desert with less men then it started with.

[bovi]

So it's not an accelerating phenomenon then. I mean, if you survived one winter in the alps, would you survive another while nearly starving the rest of the year due to lack of supplies? I kind of like the increase in attrition of sieges, possibly twice the losses of that while staying in bad climate would be suitable.

[Goth47]

In M2TW are there still crusades where you lose troops if you take too long getting to your destination like in the original MTW?. Its that long since i played M2TW that i cant remember. If so we could look at how this is implemented into the game, for instance if there is a character trait in M2TW that has any relevance to the amount of troop losses suffered during a crusade it may be possible to manipulate it for attrition purposes.

Goth

[bovi]

Crusades make whole units desert.

[Goth47]

So in M2TW a whole unit deserts instead of just losing strength? thats terrible! In MTW a unit just lost about 5% of its strength on each turn which was a far superior system.

Goth

[unreal_uk]

Yes, but I believe that makes entire units defect, which isn't really what we want, I think. I think that a number of soldiers in the various units should die off from spending time in difficult terrain such as a desert in summer or the mountains in the north in winter, or running out of provisions.

No, I believe that's how it in fact works in M2TW.

[Puupertti Ruma]

I tested this with Vanilla Gold version Rome (ie. v. 1.5).

I put the stat heat of sandy desert to first 8, and then to 99. I also modified the stat heat of various unit to first range from -2 to 6, and then from -1 to 12. Then I put the units to sahara near vanilla map coordinates 72,23. It says "wilderness" when right clicked and looks like sandy desert.

After 20 turns on pressing end turn with the first modifications nothing had happened. I changed to the second modifications (exited, started new campaign) and after 10 turns nothing had happened.

My conclusion: This doesn't work in 1.5.

[Zarax]

It appears to be quite random, I think we need more research as there might be other factor involved than just the heat stat...