Fixing spear/sword infantry

[Geticus]

I have read a lot of posts with people agreeing about the problem with most spear/sword infantry, i.e. that they switch to spears in the long term of battle and therefore suffer the lethality drop from .225 to .13 (assuming longword/spear armed like solduros, arjos, german elites, dacian elites, etc). I have noticed that the Helvetian phalanx on the other hand does it right, in the long term they fight steadily with longswords which makes them more viable in combat. The reason for this is that the Helvetian phalanx has spear as primary weapon and longsword as secondary. So once they are knocked down, they draw their swords. Likewise if one alt-attacks with them they strike with the sword and keep fighting sword in hand. So I think it would be better if all the cohorts of this type would have spear as primary and sword as secondary. This would make troops like Arjos much more worthwhile, which they should be, but unfortunately at this point they take a clear second place to neitos because of their excessive and less effective spear fighting. Again, having spear as primary and sword as secondary is historically more accurate, no troop historically charged with the sword and then drew the spear for sustained combat, which is impossible and which is what many sword/spear troops do now. In reality, sword and spear armed troops threw the spear or opened combat with the spear to fight from a safe distance, then when the spear broke, or lodged in a shield, or otherwise seemed less worthwhile, then the warrior drew his sword, and finished the fight. The reality is that the use of the spear generally preceded the use of the sword for warriors armed with both, and the present sword primary/spear secondary setup gets it backwards and degrades the value of those troops.

[Vasiliyi]

If im not mistaken, Spears are primary and swords are secondary...

[NeoSpartan]

not for solduros Vasilliyi

Solduros:
stat_pri 13, 8, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, slashing, sword, 0 ,0.225
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 18, 8, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 0 ,0.13
stat_sec_attr light_spear

MoriGaesum:
stat_pri 16, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 0 ,0.13
stat_pri_attr light_spear
stat_sec 11, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, slashing, sword, 0 ,0.225
stat_sec_attr no

Geticus... u may be onto something here I suggest you run some tests.....

However I think the issue has to do with the Solduros model holding their spears overhead that cuases the glitch. (the Helveti/spearwall model holds the spears at waist level)

[Vasiliyi]

Ah, so there might be a way to fix it. Good luck and when you have something figured out, post it in the mini mods section.

[Raygereio]

Wait, wouldn't switching the spear & sword around as primary and secondary weapons for units that use celtic_infantry_arjos_rycalawre_solduros_kuarothoroi & dacian_infantry_agema_orditon on both the model and the EDU entry fix this then?

That way when you right click (the only means of attack the AI uses, right?), the unit should attack first with the primairy-spear, and switch over to the secondary-sword.

[bobbin]

No you have to edit the models themselves, otherwise you'll get soldiers waving spears around like swords and vice versa, changing the EDU only makes the stats of the weapon change not the weapon itself so the sword would have the effects of a spear etc.

This has come up a few times before but it always fails as no one knows how (or is willing) to edit the models and the EB team is busy on EBII.

[Raygereio]

@Bobbin: Yeah, that's what I said in my post; on both the model itself and the EDU entry.
Well, I'm willing. As for the models: I'm not a modeller by any stretch of the imagination, but I'll see if I can figure out how to do it, unless I've misunderstood the tutorials I've read on the subject; it's just a mater of naming the spear "primary weapon" and the sword "secondary weapon".

[bobbin]

ah my bad I though you meant the DMB file.

[Publio Cornelio Escipión Africano Mayor]

By the way, I tried to modify the ""export_descr_unit.txt"" file and each time I do it the modifications do not work. I re-open the file and the modifications I made are gone. That's not happening with the rest of the txt files I've modified.

What do you think could be happening???
Cheers.

[DaciaJC]

You need to modify the EDU in the "sp game edu backup" folder.

[mcantu]

sorry, but this wont work.

i tried the same thing when beta testing EB 1.0 and have also done many variations of weapons swaps on the models in RTR-VII. it still never works right...

[Raygereio]

sorry, but this wont work.
i tried the same thing when beta testing EB 1.0 and have also done many variations of weapons swaps on the models in RTR-VII. it still never works right...

I'm starting to agree with mcantu here.
Changing the primary and secondary weapons around is easy enough. But I'm getting some weird results; the solduros - my loyal testsubjects - charge with spears, then switch to long swords. However, some units sort of 'hang' in the middle and have both spear and sword equiped at the same time.
So far, I have no clue what's causing that.

[Publio Cornelio Escipión Africano Mayor]

You need to modify the EDU in the "sp game edu backup" folder.

I knew there had to be a file like that somewhere.
Thank you very much, that was very useful.

[mcantu]

I knew there had to be a file like that somewhere.
Thank you very much, that was very useful.

you only need that one if youre using the trivialscript to launch the game