Insanely OP unit in SP.

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No it wouldn't lol

Battles would still wind up a DPS race either way.
It would to a small degree in vanilla, and would to tremendous effect on modded Bannerlord.

Plus, it might not be much, but having spearman with the keep at bay perk would go a long way towards making them useful. That’s the kind of depth I’m talking about here.

It would also be an opportunity to highlight what a faction is good at by giving some of its units unique bonuses. Install RBM and boom.

edit: I’m day dreaming though, this will never happen. :cry:
 
It would also be an opportunity to highlight what a faction is good at by giving some of its units unique bonuses. Install RBM and boom.
I did. Battles are still DPS races there, just slower. You literally win battles by killing the enemy faster than they kill you (DPS race) and I haven't seen a mod yet that has even tried to change it.
 
I did. Battles are still DPS races there, just slower. You literally win battles by killing the enemy faster than they kill you (DPS race) and I haven't seen a mod yet that has even tried to change it.
What kind of tactics are you using or not using?

Battles are won when the enemy morale breaks due to heavy losses from being caught in a crossfire and hammer and anvil tactics or simply being surrounded and overwhelmed by greater numbers.
 
I did. Battles are still DPS races there, just slower. You literally win battles by killing the enemy faster than they kill you (DPS race) and I haven't seen a mod yet that has even tried to change it.
I mean, in a way it always will be?

What matters (imo) is how the mechanics allow you to manipulate that DPS race.

What do you have in mind though?
 
What kind of tactics are you using or not using?

Battles are won when the enemy morale breaks due to heavy losses from being caught in a crossfire and hammer and anvil tactics or simply being surrounded and overwhelmed by greater numbers.
With primarily foot troops:
At any rate, the no-cheese (edit: well, a little cheese) strategy:
  • Infantry line stretched as wide as possible, in Loose formation (I call it "a ribbon"). This gives some buffer against routing units, provides protection from arrows because of the deadspace between troops, allows them full freedom to use their weapons and since the AI is too dumb to understand what you're doing, the flanks will get many-on-few fights that snowball your way.
  • Archers approximately 25-50 behind them, on higher ground. If you can get a nice steep incline, you want them in a "deep" formation. If the higher ground is just a slight bump, you want the archers in a ribbon too. The former is preferable because the archers can hit the rear ranks of shieldless men but the latter can still contribute almost as well by hitting guys from the flanks when they get close -- as long as they can see over their infantry's heads.
  • Cavalry sucks but if you have some (numbers don't really matter past about eight to twelve or so), you can ride around and draw off the enemy cavalry, distract their archers and maybe engage in some bothering of the infantry if you sit kinda close to a flank. The one exception is javelin cavalry, who you can ride around the rear of the enemy infantry on hold fire and at slow speed, then tell them to throw at around 30-60 (any closer and the AI will try to melee instead). If they have their shields forward, you'll probably kill one guy for every javelineer you have. If they turn around, your arrows will reave them instead.
  • Once you defeat the initial enemy push, just sit there, let them flee, regroup, whatever. Don't charge. Don't even advance. Sit right next to your respawn point (where you start the battle) and just let them feed in again.
With Aserai troops:
This is if you don't just want to pure cheese with nothing but mameluke horse archers. It was written almost a year ago but at a quick glance it should still be valid in the current game.
...
The way that works for me is leaning into the idea that Tribal troop tree isn't capable of much more than holding a line, while the Mameluke and Noble lines handle the decisive action.

Their shock infantry is good, yeah, but requires excessive micro-management to keep them from being arrow fodder and get good results. The easier way to handle them, rather than having to waste clicks and brain-cycles meticulously keeping them behind the shieldwall of tribal infantry, is to use the mounted Mamelukes to harass and distract those archers instead. Bring the shieldwall forward a bit, just enough to draw the enemy in, then commit the Mameluke axes to one flank or the other -- never the center. Their axes will get caught in the moshpit too often if they swing and overhead attacks miss out on the ability to cleave through multiple enemies, which is honestly one of the most bonkers things about Mamuluke axemen. Posted out on one flank, they'll not only get many-on-few engagements repeatedly, but have enough space to get in big swings on guys facing the other way.

Alternatively, if you can acquire enough Faris (although Haramis, the T4 desert bandit, work well enough) you can use that as your flanking force. But it is important that you somewhat control their release of the javelins. They don't have very many of them, so you want them to count. If you only have a few Haramis/Faris, you'll want to lead them yourself, on hold fire orders, until you can get a decisive flank then slow to a trot and get them to throw their javelins. A javelin's accuracy is immense in AI once they're moving slow and you can literally watch something like 10 or 15 Aserai-flavored javcav crumple a rank of enemies in front of them with a good release. The best part is that Faris (maybe only the high-tier ones, I don't recall off the top of my head) have javelins that one-shot almost anything with even a modest speed bonus.
In general:
1. Shallow-vee formation for archers/horse archers, so the guys on the far ends can get around shield-bearing infantry as they get to close range.

2. With an infantry anvil, using heavy cav as my hammer but instead of the Charge command (wasteful and scattershot) I instead give them a move order from one flank of the enemy to the other, ideally with enough width in their formation to drag across their archers as well. It looks like a squeegee when you pull it off correctly, and you can immediately repeat rather than letting your cav take some crazy long trip before turning around.

3. Mamluke-style horse archery: mounts stationary, only moving to redeploy to a new position. Combined with heavy cav to force the enemy to give up an exposed flank. Put the heavy cav on follow orders and angle yourself so they just barely contact one side of the eny formation. If you do it right, like fifty dudes spin their shields around and catch arrows to the back, you don't lose any heavy cav and the enemy formation sorta comes apart.

4. I never use the Face Direction command. Instead I use the drag-and-drop troop placement because it let's you set your formation width and fixes their orientation.

5. Speaking of width, never deploy your units deep. They should be in a wide ribbon, ideally wider than the enemy. In the case of infantry, give a Charge command as the enemy gets close and the ends of your formation will collapse in on their flanks. For cavalry there are some times you want a narrow front, like maneuvering around to clip the corners of the enemy formation, but if you ever pull off a rear flank, you want them as wide as possible.

6. The most devastating possible charge is one with javelin cav at a trot, arrayed as wide as practical, on Hold Fire orders until you reach about 30 meters. Let them throw then give them Move command through the enemy formation and well beyond. Done right, you'll drop one dude for every cavalryman you commited.
There's lots of repetition between those because the battles are pretty much Lanchesterian in nature and that drives things towards a single optimum set of tactics (many-on-few, no reserves, single troop type dominance, snowballing outcomes) that get old pretty quick.
Battles are won when the enemy morale breaks due to heavy losses from being caught in a crossfire and hammer and anvil tactics or simply being surrounded and overwhelmed by greater numbers.
The morale system doesn't care how casualties are generated. It only cares that the men are being killed/wounded and within a certain radius, along with a modest RNG to their starting morale. There is no morale contagion so you'll never see an actual cascading rout spread throughout an army, except by killing enough men in their immediate vicinity. There isn't even global morale tracking, except in the sense of the party's morale at the start of a battle.

Presently, the morale system is a DPS race expressed in slightly different terms.
What do you have in mind though?
Something approximately reflecting actual medieval battles.

Breaking enemy morale rather than breaking most of their bodies. And breaking their morale not only by killing (although it helps) but by other methods: fatigue, isolation, pelting them with arrows and javelins even if ineffectual, threatening them with charges by cavalry even if only bluffs, etc. But all that balanced by units/formations being fairly resilient -- resistant to having large numbers killed -- until they are either outmatched, absolutely exhausted or disordered. Sending units at them having a similar effect on your own troops, even if they somewhat outnumber them and resulting in two spent units flailing at each other to little effect. The idea is that you can't just slam your whole force into the enemy to produce X casualties for Y losses reliably but instead the enemy's troops have to be outmaneuvered or ground down over time until they become unable to fend off your attacks. Then they are vulnerable to being slaughtered but with the risk inherent in pursuit, that the pursued might rally and put their pursuers (who are disordered in turn by chasing after fleeing enemies) to flight in turn.

So the player has a choice, even in a winning battle: an overly cautious attack without pursuit means most of the enemy force withdraws in good order and reforms, with maybe 20-25% losses, half of them permanent (the killed and captured). But an aggressive pursuit or attempt at annihilation has the chance of backfiring. It means the military logic of pursuit by cavalry actually makes sense for the same reason it did IRL. The same failure states exist, so feigned retreats make sense. Maintaining a reserve makes sense. The player facing the same set of command decisions. How long to keep my units fighting before relieving them, knowing that the last guy with fresh troops probably wins? When and where to commit my reserve? Should we pursue?

To their credit, TaleWorlds have been totally and unambiguously clear that they don't intend to do any of this, at all. They aren't dumb or incompetent -- at least three of them have made public statements that are way beyond of the usual layman's understanding of medieval battle/war -- they just want their game to be more in line with the cinematic experience where you have wild, swirling gestalt melee action. So it isn't going to happen by their hand and they've said (elsewhere, if not here on the forums) that if anyone wants that, they'll have to mod it.
 
*snip*

Something approximately reflecting actual medieval battles.

Breaking enemy morale rather than breaking most of their bodies. And breaking their morale not only by killing (although it helps) but by other methods: fatigue, isolation, pelting them with arrows and javelins even if ineffectual, threatening them with charges by cavalry even if only bluffs, etc. But all that balanced by units/formations being fairly resilient -- resistant to having large numbers killed -- until they are either outmatched, absolutely exhausted or disordered. Sending units at them having a similar effect on your own troops, even if they somewhat outnumber them and resulting in two spent units flailing at each other to little effect. The idea is that you can't just slam your whole force into the enemy to produce X casualties for Y losses reliably but instead the enemy's troops have to be outmaneuvered or ground down over time until they become unable to fend off your attacks. Then they are vulnerable to being slaughtered but with the risk inherent in pursuit, that the pursued might rally and put their pursuers (who are disordered in turn by chasing after fleeing enemies) to flight in turn.

So the player has a choice, even in a winning battle: an overly cautious attack without pursuit means most of the enemy force withdraws in good order and reforms, with maybe 20-25% losses, half of them permanent (the killed and captured). But an aggressive pursuit or attempt at annihilation has the chance of backfiring. It means the military logic of pursuit by cavalry actually makes sense for the same reason it did IRL. The same failure states exist, so feigned retreats make sense. Maintaining a reserve makes sense. The player facing the same set of command decisions. How long to keep my units fighting before relieving them, knowing that the last guy with fresh troops probably wins? When and where to commit my reserve? Should we pursue?

To their credit, TaleWorlds have been totally and unambiguously clear that they don't intend to do any of this, at all. They aren't dumb or incompetent -- at least three of them have made public statements that are way beyond of the usual layman's understanding of medieval battle/war -- they just want their game to be more in line with the cinematic experience where you have wild, swirling gestalt melee action. So it isn't going to happen by their hand and they've said (elsewhere, if not here on the forums) that if anyone wants that, they'll have to mod it.
I see what you mean, to be honest I was actually hoping they would include some light (lite?) versions of the tactics based on moral and taunting you mentionned.

But as you put it clearly yourself, it was never planned on their part, which is fine. I just wonder if Bannerlord is (or rather will be) moddable enough when it releases to allow this kind of tinkering.
 
there should be a defensive stat in the game. which checks against attacker's offensive weapon stat and calculations damage mitigation or bonuses based on unit tier level.
this can also be used to slightly introduce "unit counter" to the game. like giving cavalry less polearm resist and more projectile resist
 
A defensive stat… so armour then.

I don’t like that idea, it is completely against the dynamic nature of M&B imo.
 
You are just using the "DPS Race" to cover everything. It doesn't work like that.
I'm using it to describe Bannerlord's battles, where realistic tactics, like maintaining a reserve or rank-and-relief, are straight-up worse than sending as many of your men as possible against the enemy. Trying to argue morale matters when the only way to damage morale is by killing the enemy is ridiculous.

And this is why this thread exists, at it's core: the best unit is one that kills quickly and safely. Khan's guards do that better than any other unit so they casually roll over everything else in tests.
 
I'm using it to describe Bannerlord's battles, where realistic tactics, like maintaining a reserve or rank-and-relief, are straight-up worse than sending as many of your men as possible against the enemy. Trying to argue morale matters when the only way to damage morale is by killing the enemy is ridiculous.

And this is why this thread exists, at it's core: the best unit is one that kills quickly and safely. Khan's guards do that better than any other unit so they casually roll over everything else in tests.
You are wrong Apocal but you always want to be right even to the point of using words outside of their intended use and now calling my argument ridiculous by giving a false example, and the weirdest part is that you do know better :roll:
 
You are wrong Apocal but you always want to be right even to the point of using words outside of their intended use and now calling my argument ridiculous by giving a false example, and the weirdest part is that you do know better :roll:
He isn't wrong though.

Morale isn't the reason you win the battle, it's just a side-effect.

The only units that actually react to morale losses are looters, because their morale is abysmal, and by the point they break, you would already have won anyway. There is no middle ground.

Edit: A more interesting show of morale not being linked to pure "kill power" would be the following. Your archers and skrimishers shower the ennemy in projectiles, reducing their morale, their small cav force dies so you send your horsemen on the flanks, reducing their morale, you bring your infantry forward and irl the soldiers are faced with a decision... and some actually break and run away: that is morale play. Maybe they could have held your attack, maybe they couldn't have, but they broke simply because of the position they were in, no the amount of men lost.

Not that this will ever happen, DPS races are fine as long as there are enough mechanics to influence them properly.
 
From the TW Dev blog
"At the beginning of the battle, each soldier is given a starting morale based on their party’s overall morale rating. After this, whenever a troop is killed or wounded (up to a maximum of ten), friendly troops that are nearby receive a morale penalty. This morale penalty is modified according to the commander’s skills and perks, and also other factors. For example, troops standing in a shield wall receive less penalty. Conversely, troops get a morale boost when one of their number scores a kill nearby. In practice, when two bodies of soldiers meet in the field and a fight ensues, morale will tend to drop over time. If one side is decisively winning, the other side will lose morale rather quickly. On the other hand, if the fight is more or less balanced, then both sides will lose morale, albeit more slowly over time. Whichever way the combat goes, usually some soldier's morale will eventually drop to a point where they will panic and start to run away. This is quite dangerous, because every time a soldier panics, this will also create a morale penalty on nearby troops and a few troops running away can easily create a chain reaction where an entire formation breaks and starts to run away. "

Bannerlordperks and search for morale can give you and idea of perks that boost morale or ruins it for enemy.

In short you can use a cheap force with high morale to defeat a high tier army that outnumber you but they have low morale.

Defeating a large starving army with low morale and many wounded is not a dps race its a matter of tactics and morale. you all use it but do not want to acknowledge it.
 
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From the TW Dev blog
"At the beginning of the battle, each soldier is given a starting morale based on their party’s overall morale rating. After this, whenever a troop is killed or wounded (up to a maximum of ten), friendly troops that are nearby receive a morale penalty. This morale penalty is modified according to the commander’s skills and perks, and also other factors. For example, troops standing in a shield wall receive less penalty. Conversely, troops get a morale boost when one of their number scores a kill nearby. In practice, when two bodies of soldiers meet in the field and a fight ensues, morale will tend to drop over time. If one side is decisively winning, the other side will lose morale rather quickly. On the other hand, if the fight is more or less balanced, then both sides will lose morale, albeit more slowly over time. Whichever way the combat goes, usually some soldier's morale will eventually drop to a point where they will panic and start to run away. This is quite dangerous, because every time a soldier panics, this will also create a morale penalty on nearby troops and a few troops running away can easily create a chain reaction where an entire formation breaks and starts to run away. "

Bannerlordperks and search for morale can give you and idea of perks that boost morale or ruins it for enemy.

In short you can use a cheap force with high morale to defeat a high tier army that outnumber you but they have low morale.

Defeating a large starving army with low morale and many wounded is not a dps race its a matter of tactics and morale. you all use it but do not want to acknowledge it.
That's in theory. In practice, it barely really happens, at least in my experience.

I always had to kill 80-90 % of 50%+ recruits armies before seeing any (non game-changing) routes.

Edit: Btw I hope they give back the control of units at the end of the battle, because seeing so many ennemies escape unscathed when they could be easily captured is a pain.
 
I wonder how many lords have the leadership perk that prevents routing due to moral for tier3+ units? It's not that high in the skill tree if I remember correctly.
 
That's in theory. In practice, it barely really happens, at least in my experience.

I always had to kill 80-90 % of 50%+ recruits armies before seeing any (non game-changing) routes.

Edit: Btw I hope they give back the control of units at the end of the battle, because seeing so many ennemies escape unscathed when they could be easily captured is a pain.
Killing/KOing leaders first seems to have substantial impact on routing/morale.
 
Killing/KOing leaders first seems to have substantial impact on routing/morale.
That it does, but it only translates into more units running away at the end/after each wave in small numbers unless you have a high level character; at least in my experience.
 
A defensive stat… so armour then.
lol let me be clear. now in the game. there are weapon stats like 1h 2h polearm bow xbow throw... and troops of different tiers have different stats. like tier 1 having 20 skills and tier 5 having 130.
now imagine every soldier had a defense stat based on tier. 20 at tier1 and 130 at tier5 and these defense numbers function in an arbitrary way with offense stats. eg: 130 weapon skill will do 100% dmg to 130 defense skill. while 130 weapon skill will do say 150% dmg to 20 defense skill. and 20 weapon skill will do 75% damage to 130 defense skill. so in practice. AFTER CALCULATING ARMOR REDUCTIONS. the damage a legionary does to a looter is increased by a factor. while the damage a looter does to a legionary is decreased. now the exact % and how they interact could easily be tweaked for balance

this is to make higher tier troops have an inherent advantage against lower tier troops in terms of their damage output, in addition to gear difference. to compensate for the lack of "fighting skill" or "martial experience" w/e u wanna phrase it because as far as the game is at the moment. a tier 5 legionary has the same fighting skill as a looter and that's based on the game ai difficulty, it's a good interaction vs the player, but not vs each other. in reality, a higher skilled fighter would score more hits on a lower skilled fighter and receive less. but this would require a lot of coding to put into the game. instead we can do a simple % increase and decrease to the power of each hit instead of having to affect probability of scoring a hit. such a concept is borrowed from pvp gearing system in mmo games so it's definitely very dynamic and tried+tested.
 
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Well, the game has, beside Armour, a “damage absorb ratio" variable. This one they could tie to the tiers, so instead of the always same number of 1.0 the could compare the tiers and give

Tier 1 = 1. 0
Tier 2= 0.9
Tier 3 = 0.8
Tier 4 = 0.7


And so on for this variable. That alone would would make the Armour better of high tier units. As for the AI, well they can't kick or shield bash right now and they do feints not so often, so there is defnitley a lot of work to be done.
 
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