Veni Vidi Vici – NightKilla’s Rome II Overhaul
[IMPORTANT: This mod is still a work in progress and currently mainly aims to improve Multiplayer/Custom Battles rather than Campaign since i want to play it with friends and Rome 2 campains really suck imo]
[Update: Most Campaign pack factions are not supported, only Grand campaign, CiG and Emp. Augustus for now]
The goal of this mod is to create a refreshing & more realistic experience in battles. It tries to make battles feel more realistic and tactics matter more. Unit hitpoints have been drastically reduced for human models, so taking an arrow to the face will absolutely kill (as it should) without much difference between cheap levies and expensive Spartans.
Instead, elite units rock visibly higher stats than cheap ones and will grind down weak chaff units, if they are coming from the front! However, Flank and Rear attacks matter more, since models that are attacked from the rear or outnumbered gain higher penalties than in vanilla.
Armor also matters more, since they are the only thing stopping/reducing any incoming damage. Most weapon hits will insta-kill a dude who’s just weraing a shirt.
Some units, like Praetorians or Heroes of Sparta are smaller in unit size and work a bit more like "Hero" units from Shogun 2 with insane stats, so they will be strong, when supported by other units.
Pike units are less clunky to use: They get into formation faster after running or turning & don’t wait the obligatory 20 seconds before lowering their pikes (like in vanilla).
Matched combat percentage has been reduced from 100% (both units: formation attack turned off) to around 60. Having formation attack enabled will reduce this percentage even more. This makes it possible for units to gang up on one enemy soldier if hes out of formation or otherwise surrounded, instead of politely waiting for a 1v1 to finish before starting the next one.
This especially helps units like spearmen, which also gain a higher weapon range in this mod compared to short swords, since a wall of spears will act a tiny bit like a pike wall now, when attacked frontally: They will get their hits in earlier, while swordsmen have to close the distance to get their hit off. Then, multiple spear tips will be there to greet them… This should mitigate the sword-meta a bit and make spear units viable as frontline units, not just as anti-cav units (*laughs in greek hoplite wall*).
Turning formation attack on for spear units (as mentioned earlier) might also help them in this regard, as it will further reduce matched (1v1) combat animations, which means more 4vs1 spear-poking, due to high weapon range. That is also more realistic for how ancient combat is supposed to work. All this being said, Swords still remain useful high-attack units, especially when fanking or on walls, in messy blob fights, etc.
Cavalry charges are extremely deadly, but cavalry also gets more expensive on average; they were historically often wealthy horse owners after all…
Im still working on Chariot and Elephant balance at the moment.
Missile units are a bit less accurate over long distances, slings are less overwhelming (but cheap) & javelins stagger units and give a debuff to shields on their targets.
To make custom battles/multiplayer battles more interesting, i sorted factions into different "Time Periods" (Roman Republic, Roman Empire, etc.), mainly because Rome can field stuff like Marian Legionaries alongside Hastati (huh?) in in the same army (in vanilla) and Carthage can bring Lybian Hoplites alongside Late Lybian Hoplites….
Not only is this sort of stuff off-putting to someone like me (i likes history), but it can also lead to huge unit rosters stuffed with a hundred units (like Rome) while some factions have extremely lackluster rosters.
How my Era-system works:
Now Legionary Cohorts and Eagle Cohorts, for example, are in Rome’s roster, if u select the "Roman Empire" timeline in the custom battle settings, while if u select "Republican Era", Rome can field republican units.
Most other factions actually don’t really have this issue, but i’m planning on adding some more Playable factions or units for later "Eras".
I’m also planning on fleshing out the "Wrath of Sparta" Campaign as the "Ancient Greek Era" and adding Persia and other factions there plus some more units.
I started messing around with some campaign ideas in this mod, but i do not recommend playing any campaigns with this mod just yet, as its not ready!
Again, this mod is mainly for Player vs. Player Battle Purposes!
If anyone wants to try this mod, feel free to give me feedback on my balancing or new ideas i should implement.(but go easy on me, its my first publicly uploaded Overhaul mod).
Also feel free to ask me, if u are interested in playing some online battles with me with this mod. Testers are always welcome, if anyone even still plays Rome 2 out there…(?)
Revisions:
Old revisions of this mod are available below. Click the link to download.
