SP - Battles & Sieges Unit Command Improvements

[HAxan]

It would be really nice to have the ability to select which units to charge/harass or otherwise target.

Light cavalry has historically been used to kill routing troops or undefended archers. Not that easy to get your light cavalry in Bannerlord to charge archers specifically..

Heavy cavalry was used to mow down infantry (anything really) but if you go on a flank with your cavalry and tell them to charge from the rear. They'll most likely try and attack the closest units which often are enemy cavalry sent to attack your cavalry, or the archers in the back line. Ofcourse after the initial charge all bets are off and it becomes a free for all.

I am using some cavalry charge examples but you can imagine the same sort of, control over which group of enemies your battlegroup prefers to target in a lot of scenarios. Archers firing at cavalry or the units pushing the ram in a siege, spearman trying to protect againt cavalry chrages etc.

Further, if possible, it would be great if this new 'specific targetting' feature could contain a 'Attack These' units option. Something like a colorcode or marker under the enemy and have it flow out to close surrounding units - i.e if the enemy and the player both have 9 units in a line, using this feature, I could mark the enemy unit in the center. If I then had a battlegroup with 1 unit in it, (which I am having selected whilst using this feature) then this unit in my battelgroup would 'try' to charge/attack that specifically marked unit.
If my battlegroup contains all my 9 units when I use the feature. Then the number of marked units increases with the initially 'marked' units' position ideally correlating to a rough center of all the 'marked' units. Ideally this would not be a 1:1 ratio but those are details the designer/developer has to figure out.

And whilst I am making a suggestion, some more formations would be great. Spears in front is a classic one and shields in front is another really useful one. (This can be done sort of manually if you set up battlegroups pre battle. It's micro heavy but doable, it would be nicer and more applicable tot eh AI aswell if it could be 'properly' implemented so to speak.)

If you do introduce some new targetting mechanics and new formations, could you make the AI consider them aswell? It hurts my soul to see the AI charge a keep in their current... let's call it 'flood the map' formation. Seeing how much you've improved the rest of the siege battles, its a thumb in the eye to see the AI's approach really has not.

But hey, these are minor things, great work so far.

 

[Pythagoras]

As with everything that makes battles even closely tactical and fun: Yes please!

And we need battle maps and more unit customization (equipment, loadouts - e.g. main and reserve force, default formations...)

 

[Theofilos]

The groups play a specific role on how our units act on battlefield for example if your cavalry is in the ''light cavalry'' group and press F6 you'll see that the target priority is archers,infantry,cavalry and if you put them in the ''heavy cavalry'' group they 1st go for other cav etc but i would like also to have the ability to choose what exactly they attack,most of the time i lead them with ''follow me''/attack'' and vise versa but some times i would like to give them orders and then have fun alone.

 

[TheShermanator]

I've often felt the pain of this problem (lack of ability to target object of attack vs. just charge nearest enemy). I think it would probably be pretty hard to add in, though, in terms of dev time cost/benefit, right?

 

[Pythagoras]

I've often felt the pain of this problem (lack of ability to target object of attack vs. just charge nearest enemy). I think it would probably be pretty hard to add in, though, in terms of dev time cost/benefit, right?

It's a standard mechanism in every strategy game, and since this is for one major part a strategy game it should neither be hard to implement, nor should it even be questionable that it should be implemented

 

[TheShermanator]

Sure, but other strategy games don't calculate the logic / decision making tree of every individual soldier. E.g. Total war just accounts for whole units; each member of the unit doesn't make it's own decisions really beyond the animations. Bannerlord, by contrast, is designed to have individual soldier AI from the ground up. Formations are imposed on that framework of individual decision making after the fact. Given that framework, it'll be way harder in this game vs. other strategy games to have targeted attacks at the formation level.

What should be done vs. feasible given dev time and cost/benefit commitments is the adult, thoughtful way to think about this problem - as with any problem in the game. Describing something as unquestionable reveals un-seriousness of thinking.

 

[Pythagoras]

Sure, but other strategy games don't calculate the logic / decision making tree of every individual soldier. E.g. Total war just accounts for whole units; each member of the unit doesn't make it's own decisions really beyond the animations. Bannerlord, by contrast, is designed to have individual soldier AI from the ground up. Formations are imposed on that framework of individual decision making after the fact. Given that framework, it'll be way harder in this game vs. other strategy games to have targeted attacks at the formation level.

What should be done vs. feasible given dev time and cost/benefit commitments is the adult, thoughtful way to think about this problem - as with any problem in the game. Describing something as unquestionable reveals un-seriousness of thinking.

Making a strategy game imposes that, because deciding what unit to attack is crucial for every tactical plan. The AI even does that, so it even seems to be in the game already. And even if not: A movement order towards a certain unit shouldn't be hard to implement, and the attack order searches for the nearest enemy anyway, so a combination of both should solve the problem and make it not so hard to implement.

There are many things that would have been easy to do, but they haven't. E.g. proper bandid behaviour, economy and development, more realistic recruitment (i mean, bandit lords? wtf?), simple streets and borders. They even deleted things, like the combat map. I don't think feasibility is a problem in this game with most playermade suggestions, it's just the will to actually change the game and improve it.

 

[Nerethi]

Making a strategy game imposes that, because deciding what unit to attack is crucial for every tactical plan. The AI even does that, so it even seems to be in the game already. And even if not: A movement order towards a certain unit shouldn't be hard to implement, and the attack order searches for the nearest enemy anyway, so a combination of both should solve the problem and make it not so hard to implement.

There are many things that would have been easy to do, but they haven't. E.g. proper bandid behaviour, economy and development, more realistic recruitment (i mean, bandit lords? wtf?), simple streets and borders. They even deleted things, like the combat map. I don't think feasibility is a problem in this game with most playermade suggestions, it's just the will to actually change the game and improve it.

c'mon, the game is in early access so that passionated player can give them constructive feedback and suggestion especially to change the game, make it better and finally awesome for the grand release.

So of course many features are not yet fully working but the game is highly playable and fun already. Now it's our task to be constuctive and build some clear ideas that the devs can implement in one way or another, or not at all.

The individual AI is already nice, and it should indeed be extended, +1 for the ability to have a division or any group of fighters targeting an enemy division or any specific target ! and they won't run there like silly but fight their way to their target, killing on the way and protecting their back, or get out of the melee to get around the thick and have an optimal course to their target.

and yes that's a lot of work on the commander UI and the soldiers AI, so don't expect it in the next patch if it's ever made :p

 

[Pythagoras]

c'mon, the game is in early access so that passionated player can give them constructive feedback and suggestion especially to change the game, make it better and finally awesome for the grand release.

Yes, but they don't listen to us. They don't even communicate at all anymore and i fear they just fix the worst bugs and leave it to the modders to finish their overly expensive game, which is just an improved concept instead of an AAA M&B 2 .

 

[William7667]

Yes, but they don't listen to us. They don't even communicate at all anymore and i fear they just fix the worst bugs and leave it to the modders to finish their overly expensive game, which is just an improved concept instead of an AAA M&B 2 .

I wouldnt say they dont listen because they dont jump on every suggestion I've seen dev posts explaining some stuff ands how they're trying to address it. They just have different priorities I'm glad their prioritising trying to fix the worst bugs first rather than trying to impliment lots of new ideas which will probably add new bugs I'm sure some of the better ideas will be addressed at some point.

 

[Nerethi]

Yes, but they don't listen to us. They don't even communicate at all anymore and i fear they just fix the worst bugs and leave it to the modders to finish their overly expensive game, which is just an improved concept instead of an AAA M&B 2 .

Here's their list of known bugs : https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/known-issues.401168/

They need to fix these before implementing new features anyway.