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Aucta Vanilla - Combat

https://discord.gg/n2dtWQBh98

A comprehensive but "lite" battle mod for vanilla R2: TW that can be easily overwritten in the load order. New units that use vanilla weapon/projectile/armor files will be compatible and balanced.

The purpose of this mod is to provide a more realistic combat experience to total war that could either be fast or slow paced based on the tactics, units, and environment.

Mechanics:
- Overhaul hitpoints based on unit weight.
- Less hitpoint grinding. Casualties start immediately as a melee begins. Combat survivors have a better chance of surviving because the living tend to be unwounded.
- God sides with the big battalions: outnumbering the enemy actually matters now. Alot of people attribute this to matched combat on the warscape engine, however the problem was this unutilized coefficient.
- Revamped morale and fatigue. Units get tired in a realistic capacity but also recover. I've done my miles in body armor, I know what it feels like. Armies can be crushed and routed by decisive shock attacks.
- Revamped unit speed to realistic speeds and terrain affects movement and combat speed much more.
- Revamped unit experience gain rate. Experience can be easy to get but is also easy to lose. Experience makes a unit formidable but not indomitable.
- Revamped spacings: Romans don't march like robots and barbarians aren't on parade either. Melee infantry march and fight in closer order.
- Overall sight range increased. This also helps AI performance.
- Sight realistically reduced in scrub and trees for all units to better allow for skillful ambushes.
- Guerilla warfare is emphasized, units can fire from concealment without being seen.
- Increased deployment zone size.
- New animations that are rare or under-utilized are now in the matched combat sequences.
- Ships are slower, with realistic handling, and use their correct mass. Barbarian ships w/o ramp caps cannot ram.
- Changed autoresolve to fit the new unit mechanics. There will be greater benefit in having combined arms army compositions.
- Larger maps and deployment zones.
- Units attempting "pull-through" take more casualties.
- Better battle pace: projectiles and charges can kill quickly, all-out melees can take longer but are also not too slow to be indecisive.
- Charges are much more impactful, charge damage is uncapped. Armor helps reduce charge damage. Shock cavalry can cause ~50% casualties on an unarmored, unbraced unit.

Weapons:
- Revamped ballistics. Realistic ranges, velocities, spread, damage, etc. A Roman great ballista can launch stones for nearly a kilometer for example. I'm also proud to say that this is likely the only mod out there where javelins exert their full power. You won't see anyone running around with two pila sticking out of their chest anymore.
- Pikes are brutally effective. Pikes will physically push enemy units away and retain their formation.
- The polybolos now has a distinct function from the scorpion, it fires at a much faster rate but its smaller projectiles have less range, damage, and accuracy.
- Ballista bolts and sometimes even javelins can physically penetrate bodies.
- Different weapons have different proportions of their damage as AP damage. AP damage is higher in penetrating (stabbing) and blunt force trauma weapons and much lower in slashing weapons. Slashing weapons tend to have greater overall soft damage.
- Shields no longer contribute to armor. I thought this was stupid because it made their protection value non directional. Shields do nearly double missile block chance augment the units melee defense.
- Every armor type is unique. Scale and chain mail tends to be the overall strongest, but segmentata and linothorax can deal with projectiles better. Iron armor is superior to bronze armor.
- Flaming projectiles do equivalent damage but have less armor piercing damage than their standard counterparts.
- Armor piercing ammunition does less overall damage but has a high proportion of armor piercing damage.
- Weapon collision lengths are changed, there is now an articulated difference between a Spatha and a Gladius.
- All stabbing weapons from short swords to pikes have a modifier vs. cavalry and elephants based on length.
- Ballista can shoot farther and have better accuracy than onagers but onagers deliver a larger projectile.
- Weapon damage on elite units are the same as their line counterparts with the exception of a first strike bonus.
- Pila distinguished from regular javelins by having a lower overall damage but more armor penetration damage.
- Special shot types like carcass, scorpion pot and explosive pot no longer do building damage.

Formations:
- Added new formations to units such as hollow square, shield screen, testudos, etc. Every unit also can open formation like in Rome 1.
- Formations have more effects, such as bracing, melee attack/defense, morale, and speed. All formations have a trade-off effect, for example a pike phalanx will increase melee attack but lower melee defense, maneuverability and missile block chance.
- Pikes are still displayed being carried without formation enabled.
- Units retain formation while in 'shield wall'.
- Revamped unit mass/bracing to be based on real weight of men, horses, elephants and their gear.
- Bracing increases exponentially with every rank.
- Matched combat charge sequences are reduced to better retain formation integrity. I love it, but it doesn't work well.
- Testudo formation will shed all arrows and most javelins.

Sieges:
- Revamped wall and siege equipment hitpoint values to fit the projectile mod.
- Walls are now harder to take down with artillery than towers and doors, since they are 'solid'.
- Light, Medium, and Heavy siege equipment now all have the same hitpoints because they have the same superstructure, however the better protected equipment have much better fire resistance.
- Siege equipment moves slower than unladen infantry do.
- Capture zones added to gatehouses to help AI defend better.
- Towers shoot incendiary bolts and large bolts instead of arrows and bolts.

Notes:
Once you master this mod it will make playing against an equivalent strength AI pretty easy due to the larger array of strategies you can utilize that requires predictive intelligence, which AI doesn't have. This mod is best utilized for multiplayer PVP.

Compatibility:
This mod and its updates are fully save game compatible. Can be overwritten by pretty much any other mod. Not advised to run with overhauls like DEI and Parabellum for balance reasons.

Thanks to Kookie55768 for the extensive playtests on this mod. He has done a Grand campiagn up to 700 turns and completed the victory conditions for nearly every campaign with multiple factions.