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Classical Empires (Battle Pack) OUTDATED: NEW VERSION IN DESCRIPTION

Hi everyone, thank you for your loyal following of Ancient Empires, and the new community project.

Upon the release of our new battle AI, we are now officially rebranding as our own separate project, Classical Empires!

Here is the link to the one mod you need to subscribe! All parts, all changes have already been included for you to enjoy! We look forward to seeing you there!


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DESCRIPTION PURELY FOR CHANGELOG OF NEW CLASSICAL EMPIRES MOD (changes included in the new file)

NEW UPDATED VERSION, SUBSCRIBE TO THIS ONE https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2947787349 , CHANGES TO BATTLE SYSTEM BELOW
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The most important thing to a total war game, is challenging battles: without it, everything else feels like cosmetic fluff.

This mod addresses the Seven Deadly Total War Battle Sins:


1. AI will behave erratically.

2. AI missiles will be obstructed by the confused mass of its own men, thus unable to fire.

3. your levies can hold, almost indefinitely, thousands of men. when the line starts to crack, you have plenty of time to plug the gap with one or two heavier units.

4. once the AI overcommits itself in the middle, you can then flank them with your javelin skirmishers, fire 9 rounds of OP javelins in 2 minutes, and single handedly win the battle.

5. Generals can't die, thus you can use them pretty much at will as any other elite unit.

6. Naval Battles are bugged, and are incredibly frustrating.

7. Rome's roster from the start is OP, other rosters feel like trash.


Behold The Seven Deadly Sins, Atoned For:

1. AI will now aggressively look to flank and rear attack you

2. Unit spacing and projectiles have been reworked, so that not only missile units can actually fire unobstructed, but units are more compact, have better pathfinding, and charges and combat looks more visceral and fluid

3. morale has been reworked so that for most units, 50% casualties is enough to break the line: levies will run far earlier than professional troops, reserves are essential. more units will run faster, but more units will survive for the next battle and live to fight you another day

4. AI wont overcommmit the middle, your skirmishers will desperately try to help the flanks not collapse, rather than leisurely strolling to the back of the enemy formation. even if they do, missiles have been nerfed in their firing rate, fatigue rate, damage and ammo has been reduced by 50%

5. New system of health fixes the immortal general bug. Your precious generals are very much killeable again, thus be very parsimonious in their use in combat

6. Naval battles are now much more fun and playable, by having much less ship clutter (work in progress)

7. Roman units had their armor nerfed, with the exception of the top tier units. Major rework of the equipment of the other rosters to have more armor and better weapons, as would have been the case historically (celts were master smiths, for example, but if you only followed Total War, you would think Celts could barely craft dinner with all the low tier armor their units have)


Result:

By atoning the Seven Deadly Battle sins, we removed the easiest and most game breaking exploits the player had. By making battles genuinely challenging, rewarding good generalmanship, improving good features, we created a solid foundation around which the rest of the game can be expanded from: there is no good Total War game, without good battles.

Highly recommended to run alongside the campaign pack. General attributes effects have been completely redone, so that you will really notice when fighting a high tier general, vs a low tier general: Hannibal's men get double the morale, as he is a level 10 general, for example.

It was my pleasure, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

(Detailed changelog to follow)

Overhaul of AI Battle Behavior:

- flanking and rear attacks are far more present, and far more effective
- creation of new unit class: shock infantry
- dynamic deployment



Battle Mechanics Changes:


Double Unit Size (regular unit size version available) (credit to Hornet for the concept)

- to avoid starpos conflict with Extended Building slots, starting armies and garrisons were kept regular size. WIP

New HP System:

- Generals are killeable
- Unit differentiation based on weapons and armor accentuated

Morale Overhaul (credit to Hornet for the concept)

- Total Casualties key factor: 50% casualty mark is the point most units will break/waver
- Morale has been reworked into 4 unit classes: levies, regular/professional, elite, heroic/fanatic
- Levies cannot hold lines on their own for more than a few minutes
- Morale has been increased by 20 for all units, to allow more nuance to the morale system

Fatigue Overhaul

- Stamina overall increased
- Much bigger debuffs due to fatigue, worse at higher fatigue levels (exhausted units have less than 30 percent of their attack and defense, and speed, among other things)

Unit Speed

- Ratio between heavy and light units increased: light units are much faster than heavy units now
- Light units can hit and run heavier units, but will get crushed if they get stuck in melee

Unit Spacing (credit to Warcry submod, and Realistic Charges submod for the concept)

- Tightened all units considerably, to improve charges, pathfinding, unit cohesion
- Fixed missile units not firing due to excessive vertical formations, which would often lead to obstruction, much of the unit being out of range etc

Projectiles

- Fixed OP missiles (especially javelins)
- Fixed issue of missiles being constantly obstructed

Weapons

- New Sword Type (Acinates, Scythian Sword)
- Reworked Weapon Stats and attributes
- Changes in weapon equipment to various units (such as, Roman marines now use the gladius, not the hasta/spear)

Armor

- Increased missile block chance for elephants and cataphract
- Reworked armor values and equipment to make Romans less armored, and to distribute armor much more evenly across different units

Terrain
- Terrain effects have been enhanced (tip: use forests to protect your light troops from missiles and cavalry charges, especially for the flanking attacks)

NEW UNIT ABILITY: PUSH (credit to APX's submod)

- Infantry with shields can now push through enemies. Be careful using this when outnumbered, or against much heavier enemies!

Raiding Armies:
- Almost all low tier units have been given the raider trait

Naval Overhaul WIP

Graphical Changes:

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Sprite Fix https://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?800796-Disable-Imposter-Sprites

Throne of Britannia graphic import fix for more performance: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1581603370
Pikes Always On (credit to Noif's Mod of the same name)

Combat Animation Overhaul: postponed to next update, WIP

Custom Starting Screen and UI interface changes (credit to Warcry submod)