Fierdsvain towns were the worst and still are. Nothing has changed on that regard.Galder said:
Looking for best defensive cities and castles in 3.8
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sher said:
as it was mentioned - they are sort of refreshing ... for the first time you play them.
After a while you start to notice obvious gameplay flaws , lack of balance, bugs , unnecessary nerfing of defensiveness etc.
I agree with you, that it looks like change for the sake of changing.
It was said by Snouz, that scenes weren`t initially developed for POP , and it feels like this, indeed.
To be honest, I am not sure that these scenes were ever well thought and tested in floris (or where they come from?) .
There a lot of mods where they just throw everything into it, for the sake of "additional content", and then you play this brand new "Lags and Bugs: Story of glitches"...
) . New scenes are in line with some players` complains about - "one ladder is not realistic and too simplistic " - so they throwed couple of additional ladders everywhere...
The problem with this is, that original developers of warband knew very well, WHAT they have developed, what are engine limitations, what type of AI they have to work with, what army controls player has etc.
Many of these "Improved scenes" seems to ignore the fact, that AI and engine stays the same. They just decided, that it would be more realistic with 3 ladders, or with additional entrance etc. May be it is realistic,. but out of touch with the game.
--
They ignore the fact, that it is not RTS game with easy "box select - move" controls, but a game with very limited control tools ( very indirect and imprecise in many cases) , with half scripted sieges.
Some decisions are strange - there were some very bad and vulnerable cities, and they nerf them even further... emm... why to do this?
Sometimes they just outright nerf half of defenders ranged potential, because new ladders forces nearby archers on the towers to switch to melee ... Why? Was this castle impossible to take and broken?
Some scenes are interesting, but i don`t feel like they are far superior gameplay wise, just more fancy
The problem with this is, that original developers of warband knew very well, WHAT they have developed, what are engine limitations, what type of AI they have to work with, what army controls player has etc.
Many of these "Improved scenes" seems to ignore the fact, that AI and engine stays the same. They just decided, that it would be more realistic with 3 ladders, or with additional entrance etc. May be it is realistic,. but out of touch with the game.
--
They ignore the fact, that it is not RTS game with easy "box select - move" controls, but a game with very limited control tools ( very indirect and imprecise in many cases) , with half scripted sieges.
Some decisions are strange - there were some very bad and vulnerable cities, and they nerf them even further... emm... why to do this?
Sometimes they just outright nerf half of defenders ranged potential, because new ladders forces nearby archers on the towers to switch to melee ... Why? Was this castle impossible to take and broken?
Some scenes are interesting, but i don`t feel like they are far superior gameplay wise, just more fancy
Tuldar Fortress is kind of rewarding for defenders and a nightmare for attackers. Although if the player leads the assault and manages to get into the fortress, it's possible to take it without a complete bloodbath. But only if the player is IN the fortress.
The problem is, that there's a siege tower AND a wide ladder. The siege tower acts as a magnet for all units, because the attacker units are completely ignoring the ladder/ramp. Everyone tries to push that tower forward, and with the reworked D'Shar bowmen you get an arrow right between the eyes, before you can even raise your shield. In this case a player without a shield is dead meat if he doesnt hide. Shooting with a bow is almost impossible, as the arrows are coming from all sides, due to the towers at the left and right edges, Good layout for defenders, hellish for attackers. As an attacker, don't even bother about the siege tower. call all units to follow you and make a beeline to the ladder as fast as possible. Run up that ladder and hop on the heads of the defenders when reaching the end of the ladder. Never lower your shield, as the archers are widely distributed over the whole walls. run to the left tower and try to stay alive while still not giving the command to charge. if you do so, the distance between nearest enemies and the distance to the siege tower is critical. Every single unit which is nearer to an enemy than to the tower will start to attack. Everyone near the sieg tower will try to push it forward. If you loose your first wave, all reinforcements will wait for the siegetower to make contact with the walls -> you loose. If you mange to get all your units following you, only very few will run back. The rest will act as a distraction for the next reinforcement wave pushing that tower inplace and start pouring into the fortress. It's absolutely nescessary to stay alive and have all units follwing you. As soon as you're hiding in the left tower, you can let tell all units to charge, but only if you're safe inside there. You'll probably have only some life left, but try to clean the roof of the tower if you're playing an archer. If not, just hide in the tower, if you can shoot, you can clear most of the archers on the rear walls and save some lives
The scene is simply broken, but can be exploited, as defenders have a good advantage until the tower is in place. Use any archer you can get in the garrison and you will mow down half of the enemy force before they reach the walls. If the tower is deployed retreat into the yard, as the spawning point is pretty close to the ramp leading down from the walls. Block the stairs and sent your archers on top of the rear wall, where they have a very decent line of sight and enough place to do their devastating work, as they're on the same height like the attackers coming through the siege tower.
The problem is, that there's a siege tower AND a wide ladder. The siege tower acts as a magnet for all units, because the attacker units are completely ignoring the ladder/ramp. Everyone tries to push that tower forward, and with the reworked D'Shar bowmen you get an arrow right between the eyes, before you can even raise your shield. In this case a player without a shield is dead meat if he doesnt hide. Shooting with a bow is almost impossible, as the arrows are coming from all sides, due to the towers at the left and right edges, Good layout for defenders, hellish for attackers. As an attacker, don't even bother about the siege tower. call all units to follow you and make a beeline to the ladder as fast as possible. Run up that ladder and hop on the heads of the defenders when reaching the end of the ladder. Never lower your shield, as the archers are widely distributed over the whole walls. run to the left tower and try to stay alive while still not giving the command to charge. if you do so, the distance between nearest enemies and the distance to the siege tower is critical. Every single unit which is nearer to an enemy than to the tower will start to attack. Everyone near the sieg tower will try to push it forward. If you loose your first wave, all reinforcements will wait for the siegetower to make contact with the walls -> you loose. If you mange to get all your units following you, only very few will run back. The rest will act as a distraction for the next reinforcement wave pushing that tower inplace and start pouring into the fortress. It's absolutely nescessary to stay alive and have all units follwing you. As soon as you're hiding in the left tower, you can let tell all units to charge, but only if you're safe inside there. You'll probably have only some life left, but try to clean the roof of the tower if you're playing an archer. If not, just hide in the tower, if you can shoot, you can clear most of the archers on the rear walls and save some lives
The scene is simply broken, but can be exploited, as defenders have a good advantage until the tower is in place. Use any archer you can get in the garrison and you will mow down half of the enemy force before they reach the walls. If the tower is deployed retreat into the yard, as the spawning point is pretty close to the ramp leading down from the walls. Block the stairs and sent your archers on top of the rear wall, where they have a very decent line of sight and enough place to do their devastating work, as they're on the same height like the attackers coming through the siege tower.
So the consensus is that the new scenes suck. How would I go about importing the old ones?
There should be a "Neuveau Dossier" folder within SceneObj folder. Just copy its content into SceneObj and replace as prompted.Jellyfish_sammich said:
Why would you need to start a new game for just changing a couple of scenes? Changing / editing scenes was always safe and savegame-compatible. The only thing that can mess up the scene layouts is the scenes.txt, so you might need to change a couple of things there (it's completely savegame-compatible too). Unless everything works fine with the original scenes.txt...sher said:
P.S.: About the new scenes: I like them for the bigger variety of siege scenes, and for giving more uniqueness for each castle's / town's siege layout. However the multiple / additional ladders seem to really mess up the defense for me too (mostly because of stupid AI behaviour), so what about removing those ladders only, and make the scenes to have only one entry point?
None whatsoever. The game will look to load a certain scene file, as long as there is a scene with that name in SceneObj the game won´t give a rat´s ass what it really is.sher said:
If you also copied the necessary meshes and textures you could use Gekokujo´s scenes if you wanted.
Serazu
Sergeant Knight
Each to his own of course, but I don't get why people rage over the new scenes. Besieging was always a piece of cake anyway, whether by performing the archery/retreat abuse or just marshaling a host of lords and annihilating any resistance. The new scenes offer some variety at least in a battle already won the moment the pc besieged the fief.
I was always against adding additional ladders as the chokepoint is really the only way a defender has a chance of winning a siege. Attackers won't siege unless they have overwhelming troop superiority and with chokepoints gone, it's impossible to win siege defenses.
While there might be other chokepoints inside the castle/town, setting it up so that infantry/cavalry are at the chokepoints while archers are spread with line of sight to kill enemies is hard because of time restrictions and the UI isn't set up for micromanagement like that. More importantly, you want your archers to be spread and have line of sight while enemy archers do not, either because they are behind their own soldiers or are running up the ladders, that's a difficult setup to achieve. In a battle 1000 attackers vs. 400 defenders, losing 100 defenders right away trying to set up is crippling.
Attacking sieges has never been much of an issue thanks to the various tactics already mentioned. There is simply no need for more ladders that make it even easier to win an attacking siege. The real challenge is to defend, and I have battlesize set to 400 with 7 reinforcement waves so that most troops are accounted for.
While there might be other chokepoints inside the castle/town, setting it up so that infantry/cavalry are at the chokepoints while archers are spread with line of sight to kill enemies is hard because of time restrictions and the UI isn't set up for micromanagement like that. More importantly, you want your archers to be spread and have line of sight while enemy archers do not, either because they are behind their own soldiers or are running up the ladders, that's a difficult setup to achieve. In a battle 1000 attackers vs. 400 defenders, losing 100 defenders right away trying to set up is crippling.
Attacking sieges has never been much of an issue thanks to the various tactics already mentioned. There is simply no need for more ladders that make it even easier to win an attacking siege. The real challenge is to defend, and I have battlesize set to 400 with 7 reinforcement waves so that most troops are accounted for.
Rela Keep
http://imgur.com/a/amtL5
No changes, good defensive castle.
You can chokepoint the siege tower or in the 3 story tower where your infantry/cavalry and enemy troops are protected from missile fire but if you set up your archers in the courtyard the enemy have to pass through the missile fire to engage your infantry in the tower.
Only downside is your reinforcements spawn some distance back from where the action is.
http://imgur.com/a/amtL5
No changes, good defensive castle.
You can chokepoint the siege tower or in the 3 story tower where your infantry/cavalry and enemy troops are protected from missile fire but if you set up your archers in the courtyard the enemy have to pass through the missile fire to engage your infantry in the tower.
Only downside is your reinforcements spawn some distance back from where the action is.
Ishkoman
http://imgur.com/a/Delhn
Screenshots are of the internal courtyard
The exterior has 2 ladders and the inside courtyard has 2 ladders, big changes similar to Singal
Archer performance was better than Singal and you have that whole external wall to let your archers work their magic
On defense it looks really good as there are only 2 ladders to chokepoint
http://imgur.com/a/Delhn
Screenshots are of the internal courtyard
The exterior has 2 ladders and the inside courtyard has 2 ladders, big changes similar to Singal
Archer performance was better than Singal and you have that whole external wall to let your archers work their magic
On defense it looks really good as there are only 2 ladders to chokepoint
Saidu Sharif
http://imgur.com/a/AbNtV
New ladder added but its blocked by a piece of wood sticking out of the wall
AI dosen't use it, I was able to squeeze by
With the above bug I would say its a good defensive fort, main problems are that the breech is big so expect large casulties there and reinforcements take a while to reach it
http://imgur.com/a/AbNtV
New ladder added but its blocked by a piece of wood sticking out of the wall
AI dosen't use it, I was able to squeeze by
With the above bug I would say its a good defensive fort, main problems are that the breech is big so expect large casulties there and reinforcements take a while to reach it
Torbah
http://imgur.com/a/e3YCk
Inner courtyard has 3 ladders
A few of my troops where stuck outside and had to use command nearest to bring them into the courtyard
I would say it is hard to defend because of the 3 ladders and it would be hard to use the stairs(as there are 2) as a chokepoint
This should finally allow me to start my rebellion(4 towns and a castle, Ulric was generous)
http://imgur.com/a/e3YCk
Inner courtyard has 3 ladders
A few of my troops where stuck outside and had to use command nearest to bring them into the courtyard
I would say it is hard to defend because of the 3 ladders and it would be hard to use the stairs(as there are 2) as a chokepoint
This should finally allow me to start my rebellion(4 towns and a castle, Ulric was generous)
Shadi Shahid
http://imgur.com/a/WY8J3
2 new ladders added, difficult to defend as can be seen in the picture although a defense could be mounted at the stairs or the gatehouse
Nal Tar
http://imgur.com/a/1GP8g
New ladder added, a defense should be possible but it would be tough
Muqaddas Pani
http://imgur.com/a/lE1YB
2 new ladders added, reinforcements spawn a long way from the breech
A defense could be mounted in the gatehouse with archers able to fire from multiple directions
Poinsbruk
Just defended it from Wolfbode and it was easy, that breech while big is still easy to hold
I'm gonna retry the battle using my MW morningstar to see if I can match my bow kills
http://imgur.com/a/ZXh9O
Tried it with my trusty morningstar and got KO'd
Sir Alistair managed to get 46 kills(the low level guys)
http://imgur.com/a/H92Ie
IMO poinsbruk is easy to defend you just need to have enough mass to hold the breech and let your archers do their thing
Btw in the last picture, top right part you can see your inventory box...kind of bizzare location for it
http://imgur.com/a/WY8J3
2 new ladders added, difficult to defend as can be seen in the picture although a defense could be mounted at the stairs or the gatehouse
Nal Tar
http://imgur.com/a/1GP8g
New ladder added, a defense should be possible but it would be tough
Muqaddas Pani
http://imgur.com/a/lE1YB
2 new ladders added, reinforcements spawn a long way from the breech
A defense could be mounted in the gatehouse with archers able to fire from multiple directions
Poinsbruk
Just defended it from Wolfbode and it was easy, that breech while big is still easy to hold
I'm gonna retry the battle using my MW morningstar to see if I can match my bow kills
http://imgur.com/a/ZXh9O
Tried it with my trusty morningstar and got KO'd
Sir Alistair managed to get 46 kills(the low level guys)
http://imgur.com/a/H92Ie
IMO poinsbruk is easy to defend you just need to have enough mass to hold the breech and let your archers do their thing
Btw in the last picture, top right part you can see your inventory box...kind of bizzare location for it
The problem is, that besieging is a lot easier than defending. There has been a lot of work going into the scenes, you can see that, even if it doesn't work properly in some cases. So raging or ranting about someone elses work is not really intended. But it needs to be pointed out, as defending fiefs is your first test of strength as a monarch in Pendor
. Those NPC kings and their lords do not play around, they want you dead, ultimately dead.... as soon as possible, with the biggest horde they can come up with So being besieged is kind of.... accepting the challenge. You have been slapped into your face by this incompetent, arrogant but noble bastard who's bold enough to park his army in front of your castle door. Wouldn't you also want to tell him "THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!!!" and ram your Zweihander into his stomach whem he charges up that ladder? The problem is... you often can't. As always, PoP is a little bit over the top. The damage is way higher, the archers are deadly, and the sieges were supposed to be hard as hell. Now, besieging was supposed to be easier, but due to new entry points, several strategies that people used before aren't working anymore. Not because it's so damn hard, but because of a layout problem, or your men got stuck somewhere collecting daisies. That's frustrating if you have been relying on archers and you don't have a higher ground to put them... something like that. The choice HOW to defend a castle is partially removed by adding new entries in the castle. It doesn't open up a new way to defend it. Before, you could defend by simply hacking and slaying with melees (Windholm), or shooting down all enemies before they can push the siege tower to the walls (Rela Keep). Now, you don't have that much freedom anymore, as you'll be overrun if you don't plan it in the right way. For defenders, new entry points are always limiting. For attackers, it makes things a lot easier... which i can't understand, as besieging is not that hard in the end. Anyway, what's the point in having a fief? You need them to store your garrison and some goods. What's the point in occupying a city like Valonbray? If the advantage is on the side of the attacker? Why should i even think about defending it? 20 men garrison just some seconds before the monthly income is generated would be enough... and then Lord XY Hairytongue will come along with his band of funny buddies and reraid it. Why had that city exactly some walls?
If the defenders don't have a real chance it cuts down the ability to defend against a huge enemy marshal blob. You're forced to meet them on the field, the option to defend is removed, if you can't field a certain amount of defnders. You are forced to have a high tier army, you're forced to make money by selling prisoners, winning tournaments... and that gets very repetitive after a while. While each way to defend your kingdom is absolutely ok, it cuts down the freedom to play in a different way... and it's a bit removing the siege challenge for the attackers. It feels just somehow exploitish, like i've written before in how to get into the Tuldar fortress. It's all up to the player running as fast into the keep and hide inside a tower, while you keep your army following you. It's scriptwise a little bit the game limitation.I don't think it would help, and it wouldn't be fair, as you can see how much work has been spent on the new scenes. Perhaps it would be better to have the option to deploy siege gear, smuggle in some spies or something like that to have a different outcome for each fief. That was already done in form of text menues in Brytenwalda. So, if you get a text window at the start of the siege, where you can decide to spend some cash on a siege tower, you'll end up in a battle scene where you have a siege tower and an easier access. If not, you end up with a quick and single small ladder, just as you've chosen before. That would reward the work of the dev team a lot more than to remove things they've put into place for a certain purpose. The same can be done for the defensive side, just before the battle starts. If you invest some gold or whatever else, you end up defending a fief with only a single ladder, because your men destroyed the first one.
Kelredan Castle
A famous MP siege map, has a new ladder added to the left of where the siege tower goes.
I don't think the new ladder would make it any more difficult to defend.
Mobray Castle
Not sure on any changes to this
Seven Cross keep
Very interesting map to attack and defend, defending reinforcements spawn a long way back but its possible to hold the bridge between the outer walls and the citadel
SS of the inner courtyard of Seven Cross keep
Knudarr Castle
Thats one big breech, i'm not sure how easy/difficult this castle is to defend, it looks difficult to me
A famous MP siege map, has a new ladder added to the left of where the siege tower goes.
I don't think the new ladder would make it any more difficult to defend.
Mobray Castle
Not sure on any changes to this
Seven Cross keep
Very interesting map to attack and defend, defending reinforcements spawn a long way back but its possible to hold the bridge between the outer walls and the citadel
SS of the inner courtyard of Seven Cross keep
Knudarr Castle
Thats one big breech, i'm not sure how easy/difficult this castle is to defend, it looks difficult to me
