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So now a freshly started character out of blue knows every unit formation and how to employ them in battle and is able to make even untrained troops like recruits follow formation orders and orders in general perfectly. This kind of contradicts how other skills you need to level at some degree to become good at. E.g. any unit with 100 more one handed skill outmatches your attack speed so much that you're unable to place a counterattack in-between blocks.

My proposal is:
  • Some basic orders (retreat, charge, stop) and basic formations (scatter, line, shield of walls) are available RIGHT from the start, this is enough to deal with pretty much everything in early game.
  • Other pretty basic but still not too sophisticated like advance and shield wall are unlocked pretty early, maybe even from the start if you have 2-3 points in tactics.
  • Complex formations like square, circle, wedge, which require good coordination between soldiers themselves should be unlocked at least with intermediate tactics knowledge
  • New orders might be implemented, like protect certain group of units, or attack some group of units. Also marksmen changing their lines after shot to reload and give space for fire-ready marksmen. This will only make progression even smoother, as unlockable skills would be more evenly distributed and basic stuff can become more easily availible at lower levels.
These may be implemented like a perks that don't need choice between two.

Alternative way this might be addressed, or even made on top of first proposal, but might require big changes in AI:
  • Early level untrained troops and bandits ignore formations, have lower morale and don't know how to execute sophisticated orders. This might also help fighting enemy kings having full army of recruits. The reasoning here might go two ways - your character is bad at tactics so he doesn't know how or doesn't bother teaching them and if basic-recruits-peasants-yesterday are already skilled enough in battle to cooperate with co-fighters, maybe they aren't basic-recruit-rookie-troops anymore and deserve a promotion.
  • Trained soldiers are better disciplined and know how to cooperate, therefore know how to form and hold squares or circles
  • Expert soldiers and mercenaries are able to employ the most complex orders.
While i agree that original proposal might feel to gamey, i still think it will introduce a little better character progression. And yes this can transform battles into a giant cluster****, but isn't that fun?
My idea is not to ruin brute-force-warriors characters, they can still use their main tactic of outnumbering their enemy with meat or just have better troops in general, but instead to make more sense both in roleplay and skilling\levelling\progression parts of the game. Yes it is gonna be harder to play this way but you need to make some sacrifice if you choose no intelligence but good warrior type that can melee 40 opponents solo (which is a lot compared to regular soldiers).
Let's not discuss while levelling up skills is too slow or grindy at current state of the game, this is a topic for another subject.

UPD: Added a suggestion for even more complex orders being implemented and unlockable.
 
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Commanding of your troops is the most essential gameplay of M&B, locking the improved command options of Bannerlord behind any sort of grind based skill don't seem like a good idea to me. Even with a better level up system and less grindy skill points, I would prefer to have access to all commands from the start.
But the skill Tree could indeed get some rework as some skills seem fairly pointless.
 
Commanding of your troops is the most essential gameplay of M&B, locking the improved command options of Bannerlord behind any sort of grind based skill don't seem like a good idea to me. Even with a better level up system and less grindy skill points, I would prefer to have access to all commands from the start.
But the skill Tree could indeed get some rework as some skills seem fairly pointless.
Well i guess sayng "skill being locked behind" or "being awarded with advanced option for improving" is just a personal viewpoint but yeah.
Do you really need wedge formation for your recruits? And they dont even have shields to make a shield wall. You still have control where they stand and i can agree that i exagerrated a bit when saying you should only have charge and hold ground commands(but its like 80% of early-game combat xd) without any skill. And with 1 point in tactics at character creation you might be able to control an army with enough precision anyway, based on my suggestion at least, just 1 point if you REALLY need this.

Also the command pool might be extended with "protect" order, or "attack unit type", which wasn't there before, this would make the progression even more smoothed out.

Why?
 

Because the ability to form these formations effectively depends on the soldiers being able to do so, not their commander. You yourself with little military experience would be able to command men to form a square or a shieldwall or anything, since it only takes you shouting. Whether or not that is successfull doesn't depend on you knowing how it works, but your men. Aside of that, the real skill here comes from knowing WHEN to deploy your soldiers in any given formation. And that is something you -the player- have to decide. Unless you autoresolve a battle. And when doing that, the AI basically already simulates your Character's grasp on this matter.

As such, what you're suggesting would be that our 30 year old character is literally to braindead to tell his soldiers to form basic geometrical shapes on the battlefield. And I'm not particularily in favor of that.
 
Because the ability to form these formations effectively depends on the soldiers being able to do so, not their commander. You yourself with little military experience would be able to command men to form a square or a shieldwall or anything, since it only takes you shouting. Whether or not that is successfull doesn't depend on you knowing how it works, but your men.
But this is literally what i said in alternative suggestion, the title might be misleading a bit here.

Aside of that, the real skill here comes from knowing WHEN to deploy your soldiers in any given formation. And that is something you -the player- have to decide.
And this can be explained as such: your character has no idea when to deploy a square formation, or if it is even a good idea to do so, so he never tries. This is quite common behavior for people not experienced in something, they can't even come up with such things.

As such, what you're suggesting would be that our 30 year old character is literally to braindead to tell his soldiers to form basic geometrical shapes
Yes if he was designed this way by player decisions at levelling and character creation. Like having 0 bow skill made your 30 yo character having no idea how to aim in warband.
 
Yes if he was designed this way by player decisions at levelling and character creation. Like having 0 bow skill made your 30 yo character having no idea how to aim in warband.

Using bows however, is a skill that you actually need to start learning from when you're a child onwards to have any succes in whatsoever. It takes an incredible amount of time to develope the skeletal and muscular structure to use non-modern bows effectively. As such, it is actually more accurate that your character cannot use a bow at age 30 if he never specifically trained to do so. And it is actually inaccurate that at that age, he's still able to learn it.


And this can be explained as such: your character has no idea when to deploy a square formation, or if it is even a good idea to do so, so he never tries. This is quite common behavior for people not experienced in something, they can't even come up with such things.

Commandin men on the medieval battlefield however, is something anyone can pick up the basiscs of after a month of dedicated training. As such, why wouldn't the character have and Idea how to do that after a decade of adventuring and military experience ? Some backgrounds even allow you to start as the son or daugther of a military leader. How do you suppose that the character has literally no experience in fields that both concerned him and his family for their entire life up to this point when you start the game?
 
Using bows however, is a skill that you actually need to start learning from when you're a child onwards to have any succes in whatsoever. It takes an incredible amount of time to develope the skeletal and muscular structure to use non-modern bows effectively. As such, it is actually more accurate that your character cannot use a bow at age 30 if he never specifically trained to do so. And it is actually inaccurate that at that age, he's still able to learn it.
Replace bow with any other skill, this was just an example. A man that's not familiar with archery might never figure out that he can put arrow on left side of the bow when he learnt to use right and vice versa, or that he can use thumb draw. I'm not good enough in archery to continue on this topic but i think u get the idea. This is just general learning experience, haven't you at least once said "Oh **** so you could do that this way? Wow that's so obvious i feel kinda stupid" while learning something new?

Niomedes said:
something anyone can pick up the basiscs of after a month of dedicated training
Yes that's what i'm proposing, you unlock abilities by learning.

Niomedes said:
why wouldn't the character have and Idea how to do that after a decade of adventuring and military experience
He would, because by this time his "Tactician" skill would inevitably grow. I'm not really sure but if you don't have focus points in some skill it doesnt prevent you from levelling it up, its just slow. Might be wrong on this part.

Niomedes said:
Some backgrounds even allow you to start as the son or daugther of a military leader.
So he'd have a point in tactics and would be able to do more advanced stuff, again just like i propose.

How do you suppose that the character has literally no experience in fields that both concerned him and his family for their entire life up to this point when you start the game?
I don't really remember what are all options in character creation menu, but i'm sure there are some, in which neither you nor your family were concerned about military things. Also this is not about having experience in fields, fighting or survival, its about commanding troops in a smart way.
 
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So what about if formations remain as they are but add special functions instead to formations like archers rotation after shotting, or shieldwall soldiers to rotate when wounded.
 
Replace bow with any other skill, this was just an example. A man that's not familiar with archery might never figure out that he can put arrow on left side of the bow when he learnt to use right and vice versa, or that he can use thumb draw. I'm not good enough in archery to continue on this topic but i think u get the idea. This is just general learning experience, haven't you at least once said "Oh **** so you could do that this way? Wow that's so obvious i feel kinda stupid" while learning something new?


Yes that's what i'm proposing, you unlock abilities by learning.


He would, because by this time his "Tactician" skill would inevitably grow. I'm not really sure but if you don't have focus points in some skill it doesnt prevent you from levelling it up, its just slow. Might be wrong on this part.


So he'd have a point in tactics and would be able to do more advanced stuff, again just like i propose.


I don't really remember what are all options in character creation menu, but i'm sure there are some, in which neither you nor your family were concerned about military things. Also this is not about having experience in fields, fighting or survival, its about commanding troops in a smart way.

You can't train that in this game though. Well, you can finally do personal combat training after they have implemented exp for tournaments and the Arena, but there is no military academy you could attend anywhere to be found. As such, you'd need to learn by doing, and to learn by doing, the formations need to be accessible from the start.
 
As such, you'd need to learn by doing, and to learn by doing, the formations need to be accessible from the start.
You dont learn Tactics skill by using formations, you learn it by autoresolve(which is not lethal vs looters who are primary experience in early-game), escaping enemy and winning while outnumbered. None of these require formations(talking early-game exclusively, because you will inevitably learn at least some formations later in the game). If you really need basic formations you may spend 1 point at character creation and get them really soon or instantly. At least thats how i see and propose it.
 
You dont learn Tactics skill by using formations, you learn it by autoresolve(which is not lethal vs looters who are primary experience in early-game), escaping enemy and winning while outnumbered. None of these require formations(talking early-game exclusively, because you will inevitably learn at least some formations later in the game). If you really need basic formations you may spend 1 point at character creation and get them really soon or instantly. At least thats how i see and propose it.


You can't autoresolve something in real life though. And to your character, it makes no difference whether you the player autoresolve or not. To them, it's all real. As such, logically speaking, he couldn't learn formations according to your suggestion.

Not to mention that it is a terrible Idea to force people to autoresolve any combat.
 
You can't autoresolve something in real life though
Not a valid point, its a game

As such, logically speaking, he couldn't learn formations according to your suggestion.
According to my suggestion you DO learn by doing. I stated this many times but u ignore it. Just like you ignored 2 other ways how you can train this skill, which, btw, since it's a game and not real life, according by game's logic, would allow a person to learn formations. I guess at this point you could just admit you just don't like the idea of formations having the need to be unlocked, because all your arguments straight up repeat what i say in the suggestion or followed up comments.

force people to autoresolve any combat
No one is forcing anyone to do anything, there are also TWO more ways if you for some reason don't autoresolve even grindy non-lethal low risk high reward combats (looters) for free XP and free Tactics training.
 
That's a good suggestion. It would breathe more life into this skill
Also, you already learn it from being in armies too - which would be pretty immersive. Learning by seeing other Lords use different tactics in battles.
 
So what about if formations remain as they are but add special functions instead to formations like archers rotation after shotting, or shieldwall soldiers to rotate when wounded.
Yeah but what is really different between just being able to unlock only new orders\formations, or unlock any orders\formations. Just because before it was availible to everyone doesn't mean you can't now make it all unlockable only? It is just a point of view, some may think something was taken away, some may think they're being awarded for progressing the game

I like the idea of new orders and formations though, this will even make the progression even better, if implemented with my proposal in mind.
 
Not a valid point, its a game

It is a valid point in relation to your argument. Your whole point seems to be that it is unrealistic for the character to know all of the commands right off the bat. As such, it is a valid point that if they don't know them and can't learn them in character, they can never use them. Whether or not this is a game doesn't matter in this discussion.

Unless of course you want to tell me that the abilities of the player should take precedence in this case ?

According to my suggestion you DO learn by doing. I stated this many times but u ignore it. Just like you ignored 2 other ways how you can train this skill, which, btw, since it's a game and not real life, according by game's logic, would allow a person to learn formations. I guess at this point you could just admit you just don't like the idea of formations having the need to be unlocked, because all your arguments straight up repeat what i say in the suggestion or followed up comments.

How is the character supposed to learn something by doing they can't do at all. Your suggestion proposes that they won't have any clue whatsoever how to use or deploy formations. If that is the case, they can not do the "doing" part of learning by doing. I'm not ignoring what you're telling me here, I'm just pointing out the inconsistencies.

No one is forcing anyone to do anything, there are also TWO more ways if you for some reason don't autoresolve even grindy non-lethal low risk high reward combats (looters) for free XP and free Tactics training.

Well, nobody is forcing me to do anything right now, but your suggestion pretty much means that we would be forced to auto resolve combats to gain points in tactics to then unlock formations, since there is no other way to gain tactics points. Well, aside of doing manual combat with formations disabled, which both takes longer and is less fun.

Aside of the fact that logically speaking, it wouldn't be possible for anyone to learn how to use formations under the argument your proposal is based on. Again, unless you feel that player skill should take precedence over in-character abilities here. If so however, your whole argument is without basis.
 
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It is a valid point in relation to your argument. Your whole point seems to be that it is unrealistic for the character to know all of the commands right off the bat. As such, it is a valid point that if they don't know them and can't learn them in character, they can never use them. Whether or not this is a game doesn't matter in this discussion.

Unless of course you want to tell me that the abilities of the player should take precedence in this case ?
It is not. My point is not it is unrealistic, i tried to not use this word at all in my reasoning, and when i do use it one time, i point out it's not a valid point anyway. So caught you there.
My point is it does not MAKE SENSE by game's logic. Some things can make sense but be unrealistic if they follow the logic that is already in the game, like rocket jumping in quake for example.
So it does matter if it's a game, because in this game rule set you can train some skills and unlock certain abilities even if you do something else but still close enough. Like getting out of imprisonment makes you better at raiding villages. I never said that learning formations should be only achievable by using formations.

Player's skill in this game always affects the success of character, but character's skills try to put penalty this. This is the same thing i suggest. Reduce the effectiveness of player's commands because character is not well trained in tactics.

Your suggestion proposes that they won't have any clue whatsoever how to use or deploy formations. I'm not ignoring what you're telling me here, I'm just pointing out the inconsistencies.
ONLY if he has ZERO levels in tactics. Which can be acquired even in character creation menu, if you NEED them. I repeated this multiple times, and you say you don't ignore, huh. Zero levels in tactics means zero character knowledge, or close to.

If that is the case, they can not do the "doing" part of learning by doing.
Adressed this so many times, even once in this post itself, i will not repeat again. Btw when you fight other lords, you see what they do and learn by this also. Seeing lord deploying a square once still doesnt make your character tactics genius and instantly understand all and every possible uses or when it is correct to use it. So he might not want to try it out the same second.

we would be forced to auto resolve combats
Two more ways to level tactics if you hate auto resolve. Two more. One of them involves fighting actual battles. Quit this bs.

doing manual combat with formations disabled
I repeat again so you understand it better. Only if you have 0 levels in tactics. Create better character or train the skill if you NEED them. I repeat again you can train the skill in 3 ways. The skills is called Tactics, not Formations.

Again, unless you feel that player skill should take precedence over in-character abilities here.
This is what i'm trying to fight. 0 intelligence character with 0 tactics knowledge shouldn't be able to employ complex tactical decicions, which is ENTIRELY dependent on how well the player is able to employ them now.

Also there is one major point, which i just tested and now i'm 100% sure in what i say. The 'cap' on skills is not a hard cap, but a soft cap with about 50% reduction of learning rate. So you are able to learn skills even if you dont put any focus points in them or have low attribute value.
 
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It is not. My point is not it is unrealistic, i tried to not use this word at all in my reasoning, and when i do use it one time, i point out it's not a valid point anyway. So caught you there.
My point is it does not MAKE SENSE by game's logic. Some things can make sense but be unrealistic if they follow the logic that is already in the game, like rocket jumping in quake for example.
So it does matter if it's a game, because in this game rule set you can train some skills and unlock certain abilities even if you do something else but still close enough. Like getting out of imprisonment makes you better at raiding villages. I never said that learning formations should be only achievable by using formations.

Player's skill in this game always affects the success of character, but character's skills try to put penalty this. This is the same thing i suggest. Reduce the effectiveness of player's commands because character is not well trained in tactics.

By the game's logic it makes sense for the character to know all formations from the very beginning though, since no matter what start you take, there is a 10 years gap between the last two options during which they were an adventurer. As such, they already picked up everything they'd ever need to know about basic formations. Whether or not their soldiers are adapt at using them is another story though.

ONLY if he has ZERO levels in tactics. Which can be acquired even in character creation menu, if you NEED them. I repeated this multiple times, and you say you don't ignore, huh. Zero levels in tactics means zero character knowledge, or close to.

This just means that you'd force people into taking backgrounds they may not want to take just so they can have something they should by all means have from the very beginning of the game.

Adressed this so many times, even once in this post itself, i will not repeat again. Btw when you fight other lords, you see what they do and learn by this also. Seeing lord deploying a square once still doesnt make your character tactics genius and instantly understand all and every possible uses or when it is correct to use it. So he might not want to try it out the same second.

Seeing lords deploy formations for over ten years however should contribute to becoming a tactical genius in some way.

Two more ways to level tactics if you hate auto resolve. Two more. One of them involves fighting actual battles. Quit this bs.

You'd have to fight those battles without most of the formations according to your proposal, and that just isn't very fun to me. And it's not really that I have autoresolving battles, but rather that I hate not having a real choice there.

I repeat again so you understand it better. Only if you have 0 levels in tactics. Create better character or train the skill if you NEED them. I repeat again you can train the skill in 3 ways. The skills is called Tactics, not Formations.

Training this skill would be impossible in your proposal, well at least if it was consistent. Since it isn't, training them actually seems to be possible. It would however be just another factor of pointless grind that neither makes a lot of sense in game, nor is really needed at this point. We already have enough grind to go through as it is.

This is what i'm trying to fight. 0 intelligence character with 0 tactics knowledge shouldn't be able to employ complex tactical decicions, which is ENTIRELY dependent on how well the player is able to employ them now.

So, your objective is to take away control over their character and their army from the player ? Hard pass.
 
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