Ideas and suggestions

[mitra]

there is the battle tutorials, the the storyline campaign is throught to be a tutorial to sandbox campaign.

[Glabro]

He means cheating programs. But Google can answer this to him.


I've found the irregular missiles, at least, to be quite useless compared to irregular melee units. There is precious little time to fire before the distance is closed and melee ensues, and there the number of men is decisive.

Maybe units move too fast, maybe archers do too little damage from afar as well, but fact is that I at least will be skipping missile units for now, until the AI can prove to me their usefulness.

[6ann]

Hello guys.

Originally Posted by Glabro

I've found the irregular missiles, at least, to be quite useless compared to irregular melee units. There is precious little time to fire before the distance is closed and melee ensues, and there the number of men is decisive.

Maybe units move too fast, maybe archers do too little damage from afar as well, but fact is that I at least will be skipping missile units for now, until the AI can prove to me their usefulness.

I think that is a good point of this game. A single archer unit is ineffective in long range, especially against targets with shields. But in close range, arrows can kill even horse knights. And if you use several archer units as a group, their salvos demolish enemy moral very effectively.

[Desaix]

Originally Posted by Goblin Wizard

It's personal taste but imo XVIII/XIX is not a good time frame. It's 90% about guns and shooting which is really boring (as E:TW and N:TW were).

Life is nice because you get many flavours...curious that I find so boring medieval warfare. Little chance to disengage, no cannons...just ugly blob melee.

[Goblin Wizard]

Originally Posted by Desaix

...medieval warfare. Little chance to disengage, no cannons...just ugly blob melee.

Unfortunately, you are right . Blobs are a big disadvantage. I don't remember any game that takes into account a unit's cohesion. That's why army maneuvering was so hard - units didn't went through each other (or rarely did - mainly when they were running away). Units' order and cohesion were priorities. If I was one of the devs I would give a big penalty to such a units (much bigger than loose formation penalty and instruct the AI to avoid those situations. That penalty should lasts about 10-15 sec after units crossed each other. It could greatly reduce the blob effect, give the game more realism and make the battles much more tactical.

[mitra]

There ares penalties both a group level than soldier level; remember than you must compress unit ranks to dense for avoid penetration and move them in slow mode for avoid ranks separate for ground effects. Like in real battle blobs can happen but the winner is always the general which mantain the troops under the better and strict control.

[Goblin Wizard]

Originally Posted by mitra

There ares penalties both a group level than soldier level

I don't really understand. Could you explain this?

Originally Posted by mitra

remember than you must compress unit ranks to dense for avoid penetration

Do you mean enemy penetration or friendly?

btw Do pikemen get bonus for additional rows while fighting with spears and in formation (like in MTW)?

[mitra]

If your group is perforated you receive the same penalties of rear attack; the single soldier attacked from direction where the weapons cannot defend him can be hit easily. So a dense formation will have alwasy a big advantage over a loose one.

btw Do pikemen get bonus for additional rows while fighting with spears and in formation (like in MTW)

Pike have a mininum range from the enemy for be use but can be used also a certain number of rear ranks. Over this maximum number of ranks, the supplementary ranks have the sense of create group mass against perforation. A wide unit can easily attack on the flanks but can be perforated easily, a deep formation can be attacked on the flanks but not easily perforated.

[NalgaSucia]

Talking about blobs, In my opinion, this game closely resembles the way medieval warfare was waged, there was no 1 man versus 5 nor any of that bull++it.

It was about discipline and cohesion of the troops, units following their commanders, and the first who broke was the looser.

It was about keeping the foormation in line, and the actual violence just lasted for few hours (of course in this game last minutes, if not an actual battle would last 12 hours), and the main killing was in the retreat of one side.

It was about planning, but also the initiative (the thing I love most of this game) of the commander of the unit, becaise the General (or the knight in command) was itself taking part in the violence.

All in all, this is a very good game, WITH VAST POTENTIAL and with its dedicated staff and support members (thats you mitra) it may go a looong way.

I would suggest the following:
1) To change the animations of the cavalry charge. Instead of going in circles, after crashing with the unit with their lances for half an hour, they should charge, collide, because of the momentum, push 4 or 5 men (in the case of heavy footmen, 1 or 2) and stop and attack with their swords.

I dont know if its possible, but in my opinion, its the best aproach to the situation.

2) It should be included in the unit stats in the battlefield a tab for type of terrain they are.
Example: Unit is in an open field +1 arrow damage
Unit is in light forest -1 arrow damage
Unit is in a dense forest -2 arrow damage

See where im getting at?

3) Fix the pathfinding routes for soldiers in siegebattles.
Its very difficult to put a crossbowmen unit in the walls without having 10 men of the unit still down on the ground because they are hugging the wall instead of finding the door to get up with the rest of the unit.
This means pathfinding problems. It should be looked at.

I think this is good for now, the game has a very steep learning curve, but after you get how it rolls, its easy and fun.