So the devs have let us all know that they don't plan on implementing any of the missing SP features from Warband.
BL is effectively a battle sim with superficial RPG elements and an economic engine but - let's be honest - it isn't even a good battle sim.
Apparently MP is fun and, generally, the tournament fights are ok... but the mass combat is dumb and boring. Victory or defeat are almost always a foregone conclusion in every fight... and it often has to be, considering the prohibitive cost and grind associated with getting top-tier troops. Without mods, the best way to level your troops is by grinding looters... which the devs force you to play out every time because autobattle kills your top-tier units and only gives 1/10x XP for your trouble.
Case in point: the AI is incapable of using any historical battle formations. At all. Shieldwalls - the bread and butter of frontline infantry for over a thousand years - don't work. Pike squares - the shieldwall's eventual replacement - don't work. Ranged volleys - bow, crossbow or thrown - don't exist. Cavalry line or wedge charges don't work... cavalry just charge one at a time Leroy-Jenkins-style into masses of spearmen which somehow do not manage to do any damage to them. Deploying the commander's reserve isn't a thing... reinforcements just teleport into the middle of the map like it's Star Trek.
Nothing in this medieval battle sim actually simulates anything resembling a medieval battle.
And that's on top of the fact that spears and sieges are flat-out busted. Oh yeah, and the only time that spears "work" is when you horizontally swing a massive two-handed glaive and behead people like you're mowing the grass... which doesn't exactly strike me as realistic, especially from horseback.
Moronic combat AI doesn't charge or fight in formation and - when you force it to - the results are often worse than no formation at all because of collision issues. The only practical impact players can have on extremely-large battles is babysitting the archers so they don't position themselves in a gulch or directly behind the front line - where they can't shoot at the enemy - while they wait to get slaughtered by enemy cavalry.
So here's where the complaining ends and the solutions (hopefully) start:
With the limitations of the engine in mind, what do you all think can be done to make mass combat great again?
Here are a few of my thoughts:
And I'm not talking about some bulls*** "3xp/day" crap. Recruits cost 2000xp to train and there's no reason why it should take more than 2 weeks to teach a half-naked peasant how to use a shield and spear and put on some damn clothes. And DEFINITELY no reason why they should only be able to train by personally murdering other peasants on the tactical map.
BL is effectively a battle sim with superficial RPG elements and an economic engine but - let's be honest - it isn't even a good battle sim.
Apparently MP is fun and, generally, the tournament fights are ok... but the mass combat is dumb and boring. Victory or defeat are almost always a foregone conclusion in every fight... and it often has to be, considering the prohibitive cost and grind associated with getting top-tier troops. Without mods, the best way to level your troops is by grinding looters... which the devs force you to play out every time because autobattle kills your top-tier units and only gives 1/10x XP for your trouble.
Case in point: the AI is incapable of using any historical battle formations. At all. Shieldwalls - the bread and butter of frontline infantry for over a thousand years - don't work. Pike squares - the shieldwall's eventual replacement - don't work. Ranged volleys - bow, crossbow or thrown - don't exist. Cavalry line or wedge charges don't work... cavalry just charge one at a time Leroy-Jenkins-style into masses of spearmen which somehow do not manage to do any damage to them. Deploying the commander's reserve isn't a thing... reinforcements just teleport into the middle of the map like it's Star Trek.
Nothing in this medieval battle sim actually simulates anything resembling a medieval battle.
And that's on top of the fact that spears and sieges are flat-out busted. Oh yeah, and the only time that spears "work" is when you horizontally swing a massive two-handed glaive and behead people like you're mowing the grass... which doesn't exactly strike me as realistic, especially from horseback.
Moronic combat AI doesn't charge or fight in formation and - when you force it to - the results are often worse than no formation at all because of collision issues. The only practical impact players can have on extremely-large battles is babysitting the archers so they don't position themselves in a gulch or directly behind the front line - where they can't shoot at the enemy - while they wait to get slaughtered by enemy cavalry.
So here's where the complaining ends and the solutions (hopefully) start:
With the limitations of the engine in mind, what do you all think can be done to make mass combat great again?
Here are a few of my thoughts:
- Treat formations as a unified AI with a unified morale mechanic that bleeds into individual AI as losses mount and the formation is breached
- Treat entire armies a unified construct, so you can actually give commands like "guard the flanks" to a formation without splitting the unit and personally F1-ing them at each end of the battle lines... or just trusting the formation AI to do it for you (also "skirmish from behind", "stay in reserve", "flank on the left", "advance", "halt")
- Group units by function, not class: Line Infantry, Skirmishers, Archers, Light Cavalry, Shock Infantry, Pike Infantry, Shock Cavalry, Reserve, Bodyguard
- Order them by default according to their function: #1 to shieldwall, #2-4 skirmishes then flanks then charges routing troops, #5 flanks in loose formation, #6 guards flanks in square formation, #7-9 reserves
- Program line infantry to line up in parallel shield walls and then actually skirmish by throwing spears/axes before charging in formation with shields raised (bonus points if they yell real loud)
- Also, program line infantry to sort itself with the heaviest armor on the frontline
- Program ranged troops to fire at extreme range in volleys against oncoming troops AND target horses at close range - NOT riders (who they should run away from if they can't mob them at least 4-to-1)
- F*** it: turn on friendly fire for AI ranged and program it not to fire into a dense melee so they're not all acting like Legolas at Helm's Deep
- Program shock infantry and heavy cavalry to attack shieldwalls in wedge formation and give troops in that formation a conditional buff
- Hell... ALL formations should give unique conditional buffs to every unit inside them
- Use the shield bash mechanic to simulate the press of bodies as formations meet and have them break defensive blocks with success determined by 1H skill
- Have lighter-armed units who are mobbing a lone heavily-armed unit use bashes to stun-lock them (which was basically how they did it IRL)
- THIS IS GONNA BE CONTROVERSIAL: add in a failure-to-parry mechanic that scales in success with the relevant combat skill
- THIS TOO: Proc stuns when you shield-block or parry from the correct direction (shield health is almost never relevant in mass combat)
- Make parry efficiency at least partially dependent on the force used - so partially-successful parries proportionately reduce damage while opening up the enemy for a counter-attack
- Remove the attack delay for spears and give every single one of them that's over 1.5m in length the ability to brace
- Make spears extremely difficult to parry and generally bad at parrying
- Make spears break like shields - especially lances after a couched charge
- Boost damage to axes and maces over swords, but at the cost of worse parry performance
And I'm not talking about some bulls*** "3xp/day" crap. Recruits cost 2000xp to train and there's no reason why it should take more than 2 weeks to teach a half-naked peasant how to use a shield and spear and put on some damn clothes. And DEFINITELY no reason why they should only be able to train by personally murdering other peasants on the tactical map.
Last edited: