You will be prompted to choose the type of formation your AI opponent prefers to use on the battle map (they won't always use it, but they will prefer it). The options are:
1. Balanced: Skirmishers in front, spears central and behind, melee infantry (swords, polearms etc) further on the left and right and in the second line if there are enough units to warrant one, and cavalry on the wings
2. Horse Archers (eg Mongols): HA and other skirmish cavalry to the fore
3. Heavy Cavalry (eg France): Heavy cavalry to the fore
4. Archers and Heavy Infantry (eg England): Archers at the front (will deploy stakes if they are in defense mode and if they can), heavy infantry behind, and cavalry on the wings.
5. Random: one of the above will be chosen randomly and the game will not tell you which it is
Unlike other mods, rather than deploy its units in group chunks as defined by their type (spears etc), the formations in RC are built unit by unit from the center out.
What I suggest is, before each battle, to save it then exit M2TW and start it again using the above program if you want to change the AI opponent's formation, then re-load the saved battle and play it from there. I will also be experimenting with some new values for auto-resolve which better reflect the strengths of each unit, also to be included in the first patch/update.
After you select, that file will close and the RRRC setup program will begin - here you choose the campaign you want to run, and from among the many submods as well (hover over them for an explanation). There are multiple campaign choices but for now many are Works in Progress. The four mini-campaigns will appear shortly in the first patch/update, and the Late Era 1370 grand campaign ASAP after that - it will be quite a lot of work because it will feature new era-appropriate factions (such as Burgundy and the Jalairid Sultanate), leaders/generals and units, and will be as historically accurate as possible. Georgia and another faction will be added to the High Era grand campaign, and Georgia to the Early one.
Please also find attached some documents pertaining to RR (highly recommended), BGRIV (for which some costs have been re-worked) and the integrated ReallyBadAI for the battle map.
Further to the RR document: with RR there is actually quite a lot going on, but since it mostly uses normal game mechanisms its pretty much transparent to the user. But the 9 unit categories do have quite a big effect on recruitment, and all the relevant values are what they are for a consistent set of reasons.
Reading it is good because it gives you an understanding of this, and I think that increases your enjoyment of the mod; whereas the workings of RC are pretty obvious, for most people RR is more nebulous - yet back when it was being designed and implemented, I put more time into it than RC. Partly, this is because I saw RR as providing a more in-depth and realistic context for RC. It isn’t much use having a realistic combat mod if the unit prices and recruitment make little sense, because then army compositions will reflect reality less. For example, unit prices are about the cost to the faction of recruiting and paying for them, rather than being calculated on their basis of their stats, and are based on actual medieval prices.
Combining RR with all the recruitment stuff in BGRIV (and they are specifically designed to work together) makes for quite a complex and dynamic picture.
For a look at some of the work that went into the prior versions, RR 1.3 / RC 1.8 way-back-when, please see the following thread:
To view the link Register
For an overview of many of the changes and updates implemented in RC2.0, please see this:
To view the link Register
Summary of Changes and Updates in RC2.0
RealCombat 2.0 is a top-to-bottom renovation of the earlier version of RC and wrings out every last possible piece of tactical goodness from the M2TW battle engine, a remarkably deep and sophisticated piece of software. It is the culmination of over 10 years of work on RC and pushes it more towards being a simulation of medieval-era combat, whilst also being entirely transparent to the user. It can be readily adapted to any other era, from ancient up until colonial times.
Aside from the nitty-gritty details of weapons and armor, a major emphasis has been placed upon further deliniating the differences between various types and classes of units - skirmish horse archers as compared to missile HA, western close-order charge cavalry vs eastern skirmish cav, heavy vs light infantry, professionals vs mercenaries etc, as well as between their different quality levels.
So, here is a non-exhaustive list of some of these updates and changes, starting with cavalry and covering other aspects in successive posts:
1. CAVALRY
- New mounts: Destrier, Late Heavy Horse, Spanish Horse
- Mounts have updated values for move speed, mass, non-couched weapon charge bonus, heat, stamina, x-radius
- New mount categories: Pony, HA/Javelin, Lancer, Charger, Brawler. These further modify the values for melee attack, charge, defense, move speed, mass, heat, morale, x-radius
- Each mount category behaves differently in melee - Ponies, HA/Javelins and Lancers tend to pull back whereas Brawlers push forward. These behaaviors are further modified such that Impetuous and Elite Melee cavalry push forward more strongly while Bodyguards, Light and Spearmen cav pull back more. So, for example, we see French Impetuous Elite Lancer cavalry pushing forward in melee, whether or not that behaviour is tactically sensible at the time
- Cavalry with a melee level of Superior or better gets the frighten_foot attribute, which is an important part of depicting the psychological impact of strong cav on foot units. Conversely, pikes get frighten_mounted
- Increased mount mass for more realistic charges - this does not necessarily cause many more charge casualties from the front, but does enable heavy cavalry to charge into and sometimes right through enemy infantry
- Increased vulnerability to missile weapons
- Armor value now a combination of the rider and mount armor values rather than an addition
- More vulnerable to spears and polearms, both of which now have the frighten_mounted attribute the same as for pikes
- Gun cavalry now works properly, all the riders in the formation open fire rather than just the front row
- Bodyguards now a much smaller unit
2. AUTORESOLVE
Preliminary values undergoing testing; better reflects the actual effects of such units on the battlefield:
Foot Unit 1
Mounted Unit 3
Missile Unit +1
Skirmisher Unit +1
Peasant -1
Peasant Militia -1
Superior +1
Elite +1
Exceptional +2
Bodyguard +1
Heavy Cavalry +1
MINIMUM VALUE IS 0.
3.MISSILE WEAPONS
- Javelins and Naffatun throw more quickly without an extended aiming animation
- Siphonatores fire more quickly without an extended aiming animation
- Mounted pistoliers reload very quickly to depict carrying a brace of already-loaded weapons
- Crossbows have +20m range boost to compensate for needing to be loaded before shooting
- Better quality shooters receive a +1 attack bonus. This represents such aspects as compound arrowheads with a hardened steel tip, or a better quality crossbow
4. INFANTRY
- Many weapons have re-worked stats. For example, after further research axes are now non-AP but receive an attack bonus; 1H axes have a smaller x-radius enabling closer formations, a faster attack speed and reduced heat penalty
- Stats included for Ancient and Dark Ages weapons such as the Gladius and Sax, and specialist Late Era ones like the Estoc
- Falchion added and wielded by some Lithuanian infantry
- Animations customized for 1H cut, thrust, cut-and-thrust, club/mace/warhammer/falchion, rapier, plus shield and non-shield versions of these weapons
- Animations customized for 2H cut, thrust, cut-and-thrust, club, axe, estoc, swordstaff, halberd etc, plus phalanx and non-phalanx versions of these weapons
- The animations integrate with the updated stats to better depict the time taken to position and execute effective attacks, and the risk of such being interrupted by opponents with faster weapons
- 2H weapons now better employed in their historical role of assault and flanking but suffer more in prolonged melee
- Customized x-radii that better reflect the space required to wield weapons effectively, eg 2 spearmen can now face one polearm user, 3 spearmen can face 2 typical swordsmen. These values feed into formation stats such that some units are now wider or narrower than before, in both close and open order modes
- Some re-working of how 'Aggressive' animations work, ie these units are less concerned with unit cohesion and will push forward vigorously - used by Sword and Buckler Men plus other anti-pike units, fanatical units, barbarian infantry etc
- Better-quality fighting men can receive +1 attack bonus to melee attack value for weapon quality
- Spears re-worked to have better attack and significantly higher defense, and along with polearms and pikes are better vs cavalry
- Infantry of quality militia or less can be pushed back in melee; these units are now more difficult to effectively attack with as well
5. ARMOR SYSTEM
- Armor stats updated, especially heat
- Armor types added subsequent to the Improved Metallurgy event: White Harness (Northern Italy), Gothic Plate (Southern Germany), Greenwich Armor (England), Maximilian Armor (Germany)
- Better-quality fighting men have access to advanced armor types years in advance of average units
- Better-quality fighting men can receive +1 or +2 bonus to armor value
- Better-quality units have slightly increased mass
6. AI
- Tweaked the formations file to increase the chances of different deployment formations being used by mostly HA or Heavy Cav armies, for example
- Increased differences between the 5 AI battle files, one of which is randomly chosen by the AI prior to each battle, leading to variable behavior on each occasion
- Variety of different AI formations for different types of opponents that are chosen by the user or randomized on each game startup
7. OVERALL COMBAT BALANCE
- Updated the battle config file to slightly increase the effect of missile weapons on cavalry and elephants globally
As is stated in the thread subject line, this is a BETA release. If you get any battlemap crashes, in most cases it will be because one of the involved units has not been correctly brought up to date with the new animation set - given that there are 600 units and multiple new animations, this is entirely possible. If it happens, please forward to me a save of the game if you can - I will be able to fix it rapidly in most cases - you can then reload your game and run the battle in auto-resolve mode for that battle for the moment.
Campaign map crashes can be a little more complex; in that case please forward to me a save of your campaign game if you can and it is likely I will be able to repair it so you can continue. But that's what you get for being a semi-voluntary beta tester
Huge thanks to all who put their time and energy into providing feedback and suggestions during the development process, this mod would not be what it is without you guys!
I am of course interested in your feedback and suggestions (including for new content, but don't worry there will be plenty of that, and will try and keep the momentum up), so please post them in this thread
The patch includes around 30 new and updated Historical Battles.
t1aro
alZarif
Dr.Schmeisser
KhanBagatur
gurvinek2005
Crusader556
Haktar
Mady
Valyrian_Legionnaire
DinarMayor
Corrector
kosak4
Farin Frostgeir
