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Longer Battles Mod

This mod is intended to lengthen battles so that the large battles are not a frantic click-frenzy, with other adjustments to make the battles feel more epic. Additionally, some minor changes are made to the strategic game to create conditions for more interesting battles. This mod makes changes similar to my Longer Battle Mod created for Three Kingdoms, Warhammer II, Rome 2, Attila and Shogun 2. It is save game compatible and also works with all DLC.

***The changes are intended to be minimal in nature. No unit values are adjusted!***

IMPORTANT: This mod does also make some minor adjustments to the strategic campaign regarding things like AI cheat reductions, and minor balance adjustments -intended to help create more interesting battles. If you are using another mod that also changes the strategic campaign and you have concerns, then just put this mod on the TOP of the loading order.

Tired of having your entire battle line routed or destroyed before you have a chance to give orders to all your units? Tired of constantly jumping from unit to unit to give orders, making battles feel like they are an exercise to see how fast you can click the mouse? Don't want a mod that changes that much of the original game other than "the math"? Then this mod is for you!

NOTE: Keep in mind that higher tier units with tons of buffs/upgrades will quickly destroy lower tier units with no buffs/upgrades, no matter what changes a mod makes. When referring to "longer battles", this is referring to two equally matched armies of equal tiers and buffs. Armies can still totally outclass each other!

This mod...
✅Is save game compatible
✅Works in all three campaign modes (Historical, Truth Behind the Myth & Mythological)
✅Works in multiplayer campaigns (as long as your friend also has it activated)
✅Can be turned off and on whenever you want

WHAT IT CHANGES (nothing is copied from other people's mods):

The goal of this mod is to make normal battles take longer, while still (in Mythology mode!) ***allowing for very powerful heroes and buffed armies to rightfully dominate their foes.***

-Base "to hit" percentages have been carefully adjusted to lengthen battles slightly but significantly, to give you more time to react to the action and observe the carnage. This change increases battle length by 150%, average, and as much as 200%, depending on the variables and the situation.

-Carefully adjusted fatigue levels and thresholds to create a more realistic situation and to reward the side that has and intelligently keeps and maintains a reserve, and rotates and rests their forces (rather than flinging them all into the battle line, all the time).

-Improved the battle AI behavior. Now the AI will no longer always try to "blob up" into a big melee, and will instead prefer to flank more often. This results in more realistic battles where both sides are constantly attempting to outflank each other.

-Adjusted the affect of shields so that they are more effective, but cover less of an arc.

-Adjusted and greatly enhanced battle terrain mobility traits and combat effects to make the situation a lot more deliberate and to have the terrain play a much more significant role on the battle, so that effective use of terrain can have a substantial impact on the battle. Also, provided missile resistance to brush (for light units) and forest (for all units), which is something that the terrain description mentions, but strangely the base game doesn't provide.

-Significantly adjusted chariots so that although they are some of the best units in clear terrain, they are severely penalized in mobility and combat power in difficult terrain.

-Adjusted the running speed of routed/retreating units to make them a little faster than non-routed/non-retreating units because this period was notorious for soldiers throwing down parts of their armor and pieces of equipment to run away faster (Homer wrote about this). Retreating units have 0% of their normal defense, however. This creates a dynamic where its difficult to destroy retreating forces, but if you can catch them with faster light units then you can punish them while they are vulnerable.

-Significantly adjusted and enhanced fatigue effects so that fatigue plays a serious role in battles. Fatigue will reduce your speed (both movement and charging), attack power, defense, rate of fire and other effects based on how tired your units are. So if you manage to rest your units then you can be far more effective in battle, able to defeat a larger or superior force in some situations. This, along with the changes to the terrain, make the battles more cerebral and more chess like.

-Enhanced range units so that they will lose accuracy based on their fatigue level. This accuracy drops off steeply when the unit is fully exhausted. This loss of accuracy is realistic, as in real life it becomes more difficult to aim the higher the heart rate and respiratory rate. This reduction in accuracy causes units to fire more at a general area of a unit, rather than with extreme precision.

-Heavily adjusted the Aristeia effects (the special one-time ability for your hero, in battle). This is described as "My destiny has come", but has it really, given how weak it was? Since Aristeia is a one time event (per battle) that you have to work for, you would think it should play a significant role. With that in mind, the cap value has been increased (to scale with the longer battles), and the effects have been greatly enhanced. The duration is doubled (again to scale with the longer battles) and attack bonus significantly increased to make more meaningful and epic. Also, added buffs now include a bonus multiplier to melee armor piecing damage, melee base damage, ranged rate of fire and accuracy (for heroes with ranged weapons), as well as bonuses for vs hero and vs mythological enemies (for more epic Homeric confrontations).
The healing amount has been halved however, because the duration is doubled (so you end up getting healed by the same amount, but over twice as much time - again scaled to the longer battles, but also to prevent the rapid "saving heal" effect).
The main reason for all these changes is to make Aristeia more epic, and to have it be more influential on the battle, rather than tiny insignificant buffs, which make no sense for a one-time use ability which has an entire game mechanic built around it. Used at the right time Aristeia will now make a difference in a duel (combined with use of normal abilities), or in a melee with enemy units!

-Adjusted battle difficulty so that Hard and Very Hard no longer add excessive damage and attack cheats to the AI. Instead these bonuses are smaller, but bonuses to defense is retained (this helps make harder AI more sturdy, but less OP offensively).

-In Mythology mode, all of the larger mythical monsters have their size increased by 150% to make them more epic and so that they better fit the more dramatic battles that play out with this mod.

-In Mythology mode, enhanced all the god powers to be more epic - usually more powerful or longer duration. This was done to make the god powers meaningful, with an intent to try to make each one just as good as the other (either balanced by duration, or number of uses, or power).

-In Mythology mode, extensively adjusted hero weapon damage and armor piecing so that they are comparable to Three Kingdom's heroes, making hero combat more similar, and more exciting.

NOTE: What sets this apart from combat in Rome 2 and Attila? This mod's combat in Troy is intended to play out in a less disciplined, less controlled and more furious way. Units in Troy throw themselves completely at each other with no restraint. Because of this, as a commander you have to be careful with managing your units to avoid pushing them too hard as you will end up taking more casualties from exhaustion.