I'm 99% sure that TW will choose to ignore this idea. But I want to say my bit about this since I had quite a lot of fun while experimenting with it. Let me know what you also think. Also I know some modders might want to add something like this, so perhaps it can be a proof-of-concept.
Two days ago I had some spare time and I implemented a simple ambush mechanic demonstration for Bannerlord. I made the entire thing in ~4 hours so it's not perfect but the overall idea is very fun to explore. I'm not planning to release it as a mod but would be nice to see it in-game. It's also NOT complex. See the video, below I'm explaining the things.
Camp:
Allows the player to camp on the campaign map. This shows a camping tent on the campaign map as well. Camping will allow you to access certain features that you weren't able to access (the camp section wasn't implemented yet in demo videos )
- Train your troops: This will allow you to train your troops, either with training with them in the training-ground area or simply by allowing them to train themselves ( top tiers can train lower tiers only. If everyone is on the same tier, this won't be too effective )
- Rest: This will simply increase party morale since they are resting. If you are in an army, this should also increase cohesion so that you will feel the need of stopping if you are aiming to go through long-distance sieges/battles.
- Prepare for Ambush: This will start ambush preparation. I will come to this later on.
Downside: You will be stationary, exposed to other parties. Adding "assembling/disassembling camp" time ( 2-3 game hours ) can also help to discourage camp-spamming.
Can AI also camp? In the demo videos, they are not able to do that. But I think it would be logical for assembled armies to do that based on the cohesion they have. This also puts a limit to snowballing since armies can't go long distances without actually spending time on the road.
Ambush:
This is the main content in the videos. Although the idea of ambush I had in mind had two sides - videos are only showing one side - ambushing enemy party while they are camping and unprepared. Once you set an ambush plan, there is a range where you can see that Attack is gets enabled if any hostile party is close by. If you feel like you want to attack one of them, all you have to do is clicking attack and selecting the party. The success of this ambush relies on traits and skills. While in an ambush position, you are invisible to hostile parties ONLY if your certain skills are better than their party leader. This means, character X can see you and attack you directly if their skills are better than yours even though you are ambushed. The bad part of this for you is that, you can't simply disassemble your setup instantly because it takes time, so if AI sees you and runs towards you, a hunter might become hunted. However, upon successful ambush, you can attack the enemy army's camp and win even while outnumbered. It opens a normal battleground map. But in this map, unlike normal battle, they will be unaware of your location and intentions. Depending on certain conditions ( crouching, night-time, distance, and visibility ) they can spot you easily on the battlefield or they can see your troops when it's too late. While you are undetected, they won't realize that your troops are in the battlefield and they will continue their disorganized position ( sleeping, playing games, drunk, laying on the ground and scouting etc )
All "camps" are automatically generated hence the content is random and dynamic to troop culture and count (for example, looters won't have outer palisades) and can be generated in all terrains - snow, desert, forest. They are also culture-specific in terms of items they are using and this idea can be extended with more culture-specific things ( how they set up camps, structure shapes, etc )
- Pros:
A new mechanic where you can feel the stealthy side of the game.
Ambushed enemies will have lower morale - keener to flee.
Ambushed enemies will be in a disorganized state and will not have unit cohesion.
The horseman will be on foot at the start ( this isn't implemented properly in the demo video )
- Cons:
You can fail to ambush, which will make you fight with an overpowered enemy. And your soldiers will be the one who starts with lower morale.
Building and disassembling take time. If your skills are bad, they can spot you and hunt you down.
Might add extra food consumption to avoid lurking in ambush state
Can AI also ambush? Yes. Well in the demo version it wasn't fully implemented because it's a POC but in theory, AI can do the same. Shouldn't be possible to do this while in Army. Ambushing can add extra traits/skills to AI and/or can be decided by them.
Variations: In the demo, I only added camp ambush but it could be that we can also have a scene/scenario where the enemy party moves from point A to B, unaware of our presence until they spot our soldiers on the battlefield or until we attack. This would be better if we do it at noon, and the camp scenario can be used at night/early morning/late daytime.
All demo videos:
www.youtube.com
This is another trial for the on-transit ambush. I fixed a bunch of column order and decisions making things. Now each cavalry chaperoning certain units, in big armies looks better because it gives a feeling of chaos caused by marching and order enforced by sergeants.
www.youtube.com
I created a really sloppy implementation of "ambush while marching" logic
I had to rewrite some of the spawning logic and area calculations, for some reason soldier management, moving people from point X to Y isn't that easy - still idea is very fun to explore. Although it's not clear in the video, I actually implemented a message-delay system, meaning that when marching line becomes too long for big armies, head and tail will not immediately know that they had been attacked and will continue to move forward. After 16 seconds ( 8 seconds each ) entire line will be hostile and trying to organize and take their battle formations.
Reason why they are piling up in the spawn is that I'm ordering them to form a line while marching to keep the cohesion but they designed this formation in a way that everyone gets a magic number and waits for the person in-front of him, which creates a "collider" traffic jam. And if I command them not to form a line, then it looks a like scene from GoT where everyone walks like whitewalkers. ( could be useful for those mods though )
Two days ago I had some spare time and I implemented a simple ambush mechanic demonstration for Bannerlord. I made the entire thing in ~4 hours so it's not perfect but the overall idea is very fun to explore. I'm not planning to release it as a mod but would be nice to see it in-game. It's also NOT complex. See the video, below I'm explaining the things.
Camp:
Allows the player to camp on the campaign map. This shows a camping tent on the campaign map as well. Camping will allow you to access certain features that you weren't able to access (the camp section wasn't implemented yet in demo videos )
- Train your troops: This will allow you to train your troops, either with training with them in the training-ground area or simply by allowing them to train themselves ( top tiers can train lower tiers only. If everyone is on the same tier, this won't be too effective )
- Rest: This will simply increase party morale since they are resting. If you are in an army, this should also increase cohesion so that you will feel the need of stopping if you are aiming to go through long-distance sieges/battles.
- Prepare for Ambush: This will start ambush preparation. I will come to this later on.
Downside: You will be stationary, exposed to other parties. Adding "assembling/disassembling camp" time ( 2-3 game hours ) can also help to discourage camp-spamming.
Can AI also camp? In the demo videos, they are not able to do that. But I think it would be logical for assembled armies to do that based on the cohesion they have. This also puts a limit to snowballing since armies can't go long distances without actually spending time on the road.
Ambush:
This is the main content in the videos. Although the idea of ambush I had in mind had two sides - videos are only showing one side - ambushing enemy party while they are camping and unprepared. Once you set an ambush plan, there is a range where you can see that Attack is gets enabled if any hostile party is close by. If you feel like you want to attack one of them, all you have to do is clicking attack and selecting the party. The success of this ambush relies on traits and skills. While in an ambush position, you are invisible to hostile parties ONLY if your certain skills are better than their party leader. This means, character X can see you and attack you directly if their skills are better than yours even though you are ambushed. The bad part of this for you is that, you can't simply disassemble your setup instantly because it takes time, so if AI sees you and runs towards you, a hunter might become hunted. However, upon successful ambush, you can attack the enemy army's camp and win even while outnumbered. It opens a normal battleground map. But in this map, unlike normal battle, they will be unaware of your location and intentions. Depending on certain conditions ( crouching, night-time, distance, and visibility ) they can spot you easily on the battlefield or they can see your troops when it's too late. While you are undetected, they won't realize that your troops are in the battlefield and they will continue their disorganized position ( sleeping, playing games, drunk, laying on the ground and scouting etc )
All "camps" are automatically generated hence the content is random and dynamic to troop culture and count (for example, looters won't have outer palisades) and can be generated in all terrains - snow, desert, forest. They are also culture-specific in terms of items they are using and this idea can be extended with more culture-specific things ( how they set up camps, structure shapes, etc )
- Pros:
A new mechanic where you can feel the stealthy side of the game.
Ambushed enemies will have lower morale - keener to flee.
Ambushed enemies will be in a disorganized state and will not have unit cohesion.
The horseman will be on foot at the start ( this isn't implemented properly in the demo video )
- Cons:
You can fail to ambush, which will make you fight with an overpowered enemy. And your soldiers will be the one who starts with lower morale.
Building and disassembling take time. If your skills are bad, they can spot you and hunt you down.
Might add extra food consumption to avoid lurking in ambush state
Can AI also ambush? Yes. Well in the demo version it wasn't fully implemented because it's a POC but in theory, AI can do the same. Shouldn't be possible to do this while in Army. Ambushing can add extra traits/skills to AI and/or can be decided by them.
Variations: In the demo, I only added camp ambush but it could be that we can also have a scene/scenario where the enemy party moves from point A to B, unaware of our presence until they spot our soldiers on the battlefield or until we attack. This would be better if we do it at noon, and the camp scenario can be used at night/early morning/late daytime.
All demo videos:
Because it's a night attack, seeing distance is short and this grants chance for our troops to sneak in closer. If we were not crouching, however, they would notice our troops from a longer distance. Some tents are causing issues for AI when they need to pathfind, but this can be easily avoided if I had time to create new prefabs.
I used RTSMod and MBSuperspeed for view and speeding up. Reason why soldiers are crouching is to decrease detection chance. At 02:47 , enemy detects our soldiers and we get the notification. After that moment, they are trying to defend their ground FPS drops are happening because I have an old pc with bunch of development related stuff running on the background.
The reason why you are seeing some soldiers are moving while some of them are sleeping/sitting is that ones that are awake and moving are actually camp guards. Once they spot your soldiers from a distance, your position is revealed to the enemy and they immediately try to notify all other soldiers to get into battle formation. Some tents are causing issues for AI when they need to pathfind, but this can be easily avoided if I had time to create new prefabs.
This is another trial for the on-transit ambush. I fixed a bunch of column order and decisions making things. Extreme FPS drop is happening because I overestimated my GPU power and added too many troops and used torch/banner mod. I also noticed that while soldiers are outside of the boundary, pathfinding is sucking CPU( you will realize that FPS drop is more tolerable after a few seconds when soldiers march into the scene)
I attacked this party by knowing that I was going to get crashed. So don't say anything about that
I attacked this party by knowing that I was going to get crashed. So don't say anything about that
Mount and Blade II Bannerlord - Ambush Mechanic - On Transit Night Attack
About Video:This is another trial for the on-transit ambush. I fixed a bunch of column order and decisions making things. Now each cavalry chaperoning certai...
www.youtube.com
Mount and Blade II Bannerlord - Ambush Mechanic - Marching Attack
About Video:This is a really sloppy implementation of "ambush while marching" logic. I had to rewrite some of the spawning logic and area calculations, for s...
www.youtube.com
I had to rewrite some of the spawning logic and area calculations, for some reason soldier management, moving people from point X to Y isn't that easy - still idea is very fun to explore. Although it's not clear in the video, I actually implemented a message-delay system, meaning that when marching line becomes too long for big armies, head and tail will not immediately know that they had been attacked and will continue to move forward. After 16 seconds ( 8 seconds each ) entire line will be hostile and trying to organize and take their battle formations.
Reason why they are piling up in the spawn is that I'm ordering them to form a line while marching to keep the cohesion but they designed this formation in a way that everyone gets a magic number and waits for the person in-front of him, which creates a "collider" traffic jam. And if I command them not to form a line, then it looks a like scene from GoT where everyone walks like whitewalkers. ( could be useful for those mods though )
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