500AD

[Vic]

I am perfectly ok with people posting a thread in the main forum to call attention to their work.
Though discussion and testing of it should obviously be better suited in the mod forum.
I have no time to rigidly maintain any topic sorting.
So just be kind to another and try to do your best.

Vic

[Zaratoughda]

The balancing function does not change the production of the cities. Rather, it determines the total production for each regime and uses that to set adders to the distance calculations for each regime in a second pass of the hex determination for each.

In other words, regimes that have a lot of production after the first pass will be SMALLER on the second pass, and vice versa for regimes that don't have much production after the first pass. The balancing, is thus in less or more cities rather than a change in the production for each.

If I had the CHECK_LOC_TYPE_XY, which Vic sez he is putting in, then I could check what type of city is in a given hex and with that changing the production for given cities, might be possible.

Zaratoughda

[Jeffrey H.]

Oh, I think i get it now. It's balancing the production using the 'countries at start' borders of the regime ? So the country size, (in area) is modified to balance available production ?

[Zaratoughda]

Yes, exactly.

Zaratoughda

[Jeffrey H.]

...Been playing a PBEM game of the 500AD mod, interesting mod. It's tough to learn how to gain an edge against the AI. With the WWII units, it was fairly easy, but the unit types in the 500AD mod don't seem to lend themselfs to intuitive production choices. As a result, I am really struggling against the AI, (it's on AI +).

I'm a little confused about the people types and the production choices.

[Zaratoughda]

Sounds like you are playing a PBEM game with multiple human players and multiple AI players as well.

In any case, there is not much in the way of production choices in the 500AD mod. This to make the AI opponents distinct.

For example, if you draw the Huns you will find that the only choice for fighting units is Hun cavalry. No infantry or other fighting units. You will still need chiefs (staff) and workers (engineers) and whatever naval forces but that is about it, but that isn't bad as the Hun cavalry are an offensive force in no uncertain terms.

Other forces are different. The Persians get the cataphract cavalry and they are just average attacking but have more HP and thus take less losses in combat. The Persians also get the cavalry archers which essentially function as light cavalry complementing the slow moving cataphract cavalry.

Spartans have archers and Carthaginians have spearmen which are both rear area units. They give better bang for the buck as far as combat is concerned but must be put in units with front area units or they are toast. Unfortunately the AI does not realize this at times.

And of course the Romans just have Roman infantry but they are the best infantry around.

Hmmmm.... I usually play with Usurpers and no-praetorian and armies at start, etc, and that makes for a difficult challange. If you allow praetorian then you can essentially build anything except elephants. So, you will have to make your choices <g>.

One key thing, is you want to put your special leader in a HQ by himself. This will limit the size of the army he commands but he will get major leader bonus. If you put other staff in there with him it will lower that bonus.

Hope this helps.

Zaratoughda

P.S. Oh, the one force that seems to be less competitive is the Barbarians and the Axemen. So, I have made some improvements to them and plan to upload that soon. I keep thinking it is the Gauls that have the Axemen so I am thinking of changing the name 'Barbarians' to 'Gauls' and 'Gauls' (which have chariots) to 'Egyptians'. Need to think about this some more.

P.S.2. Oh, the readme file included goes over each of the possible forces so if you missed that it should help.

[Jeffrey H.]

The AI has made a special leader and put him in an HQ essentially by himself, with a small number of regualr staff. I was able to catch him with a cataphract unit and brush him back not kill him.

Somehow, through research and capturing cities, I can produce almost everything not although I started out as cataphract and ships only.

I've loaded up fighting units with praetorian infantry, spearmen and a heavy weapon.

I'm trying to gain some advantage by planning attacks and persuit of large but retreated enemy units. It's working but I'm not really keeping up. I have a 2 to 1 city disadvantage and he's AI+ so it seems like I'm doomed. I've done some rad building and chariot building as well. NOt sure how effective chariots are going to be. Should I use them in units or as stand alone ?

[Zaratoughda]

If you select the 'named leaders' option then all regimes will start with a named leader. Otherwise there is no way to get them.

Sounds like you started without the 'no praetorian' option. With this, human controlled capitals are considered to have the 'praetorian' people, which can build everything except elephants.

As far as tactics are concerned, you will just have to experiment. No specific tactics are defined. I usually try the simple approach of concentration of force and taking cities and moving on from there.

Zaratoughda

[Jeffrey H.]

We're still going with this one game Bombur and I are playing. It's a real nail biter. One thing I'm wishing we had is some type of ranged attack. What do you think of adding in something like an onager or trebuchet to act as artillery ?

[Hoyt Burrass]

I cannot find this in the community website...is it the one with it's own forum heading

http://www.advancedtactics.org/scenariobank.php

any help?

[Jeffrey H.]

It's down a ways on the page:

http://www.advancedtactics.org/scenario.php?nr=86

The zip file contains pt master files for all the ARHS mods.

We're still playing our game of the Ancient mod. It's quite interesting. Seasons were selected and they make a fairly big difference. It's good fun.

[Jeffrey H.]

The Ancient Mod game is still going, coming up on turn 75 I think. We've really been at the brink of destruciton a few times but I think I've got the better of two AI foes finally and I will be able to begin the bigger challenge of the #1 AI foe, which I am pretty sure is going to need cooperation with my human opponent, I may propse an alliance with the #1 AI foe and this will give us an endgame.

[SMK-at-work]

Where do these files need to go?  I unzipped them into the bin/scenarios folder but no scenario shows as available in the game...

Edit: Never mind - I figured out that they are not the actual scenario!

Started playing the Rome scenario...

[Jeffrey H.]

Ya, these are not scenarios so much as they ae random games generated from a master file.

[Jeffrey H.]

Bombur and I are still going in our random game. It's nearing turn 100 and there is still no clear winner. Great mod !.

[altipueri]

Yes I enjoy this mod. Thank you Zaratougha. Did I see you on AGEOD's forums?


PS I took over 100 turns to win the second training scenario "ambush" - in vanilla AT playing as red - the tanks.

[Zaratoughda]

Yes. I picked up AGOD's BOA2 in the Matrix holiday sale for something like $14.

That game is interesting... way different than something like AT. However, I was playing the Lord Dunmore scenario and the natives (and sometimes the Tories) were picking up VP for taking towns that is not documented. Hehe... I posted this and didn't get anything back of significance.

These are area movment games and are kinda chaotic in the sense that you never know what the AI is gonna do. I am not sure but I noticed that the AI might indeed learn from experience. Every game played is logged and it might use that as the experience that it learns from.

Haven't played that in a while though. Right now, my attention span is so low (due to stress) that I am only playing Warlords II and not much else.

Zaratoughda