Anyone else feel like the Tactics skill is a bit lame?

[Apocal]

It is pretty much just autocalc benefits and losing less troops when you try to escape.

Why not make Tactics an oppositional skill where higher skill allows you to choose (or attempt) different battle setups or situations? Such as when facing down a doom stack, the player party can engage the baggage train and raid it to reduce their supplies. Or maybe attempt a defeat-in-detail series of fights between portions of the force instead of the current reinforcement system? Even map and starting position choice would be something that would have some benefit most players could consistently see.

Alternatively, why not allow high Tactics to allow for on-map abilities like disguising their party to look smaller than it really is?

Something more than autocalc, so that skill doesn't feel so much like a sump for steady SP gains.

 

[mfuegemann]

For me this skill is dead too as it is now. I try to avoid autocalc whenever possible. So more active benefits would be a great addition.

 

[Magnusnyg]

Agree - comparative skills isn't used enough in this game. It should be cause to concern when facing a great commander, even if he has a smaller force.

Scout, Tactics and perhaps Leadership or Roguery should be used to make a "pre-battle" option, much like with a siege.
So high Scout and/or Tactics would allow you to position your troops in certain advantageous spots, while high Roguery/Leadership could let you set units up in "ambush" positions or possibly avoid them and or get away.

 

[federally]

+1 to basically all of this.

Tactics as a skill right now is really only useful at all for my companions. AI auto calcs all their battles so it helps them.

I'm not stupid enough to actually risk my hard won troops on an auto calc battle so I'll never benefit from the skill personally.

I really don't understand the logic behind their decision making with Tactics. Why give me a skill that encourages me to not play the best part of their game? What we they even thinking.

 

[TechnoSarge]

I really don't understand the logic behind their decision making with Tactics. Why give me a skill that encourages me to not play the best part of their game? What we they even thinking.

Prior to this thread, I didn't even have a clue what Tactics did. And I agree with federally - any skill they track should be useful for something... and the only thing an autocalc battle is good for is losing more troops than you would lose, yourself.

 

[geala]

Very good ideas, OP. That would be a great way to deal with the restricted and boring all-or-nothing map combat in a far more interesting way.

 

[mangalore]

I do agree but the reason the skill is so lame is imo because it is really hard to think of stuff and make it balanced. All your suggestion, while fine, kinda give the player complete advantages no AI can do anything with. I do think that is the general problem.

Maybe they should fold it into leadership and have leadership+tactics do a collection of their respective things aka have it be two branches of the same skill.
Thinking about it maybe they should have gone with fewer skills and have the branches do the specialization. There are various pretty thin skills.

 

[Apocal]

I do agree but the reason the skill is so lame is imo because it is really hard to think of stuff and make it balanced. All your suggestion, while fine, kinda give the player complete advantages no AI can do anything with. I do think that is the general problem.

When I wrote it should be oppositional, I meant that the AI could/should try to the do the same as the player, given an advantage (or lucky roll) with their Tactics skill. Yes, it would add a bit more challenge to taking down lord parties since there would be another level of risk involved if they could possibly split your force, ambush or what have you, but you can pretty reliably pick your fights as the player already so it shouldn't be too egregiously bad.

 

[Bronk the Raven]

+1

 

[Locklave]

I feel like Tactics shouldn't be auto cal and should be direct small battlefield bonuses for your troops.

I'm imagining when the tree is working and people are getting better results then is possible in a real battle because they have 275 Tactics. I'm not against rewarding reaching high skills, I'm against rewarding high skills with "I win buttons" and if it isn't an "I win" at 275+ then the entire tree is pointless. Because if it can't get better results then a player then why did you spend all that time leveling it?

 

[bighungryjames]

I totally agree. Maybe with higher tactics, you should be able to boost troop morale or improve their movement speed. Anyways, it should affect the manual battles, not only the autocalced ones.

In warband, tactics perk increased the amount of troop you deploy into the field at a time, because the battle size was smaller and almost always there were multiple waves. In bannerlord, the battle size is much larger so that most battles are performed in a single wave. So I agree that tactics should not be about the size of the troop deployment.

 

[froggyluv]

This is EXACTLY why this game needs Line of Sight mechanic in battle. Then you could achieve a real ambush mechanic -as in, one party does not see the other party until that the attacking party already has positional advantage on the ambushed. They use a certain level of LOS (line of sight) on the Bandit Hideout scenes as in -they dont start attacking you until you get within a certain range but im not sure how robust it is

 

[Lord of Banners]

Would be nice if it affected the impact of formation bonuses like increase charge damage from skein etc(if there are any)

 

[Solomani]

Most of the skills are fairly lackluster... I never really even notice the difference except for weapons just aiming and hitting better.

The other skills just seem unnoticeable.

Some Ideas for Tactics

• Your soldiers are better disciplined.. stay in formation better when you F4 them.. so the high athletic guys don't run out in front and get slaughtered
• Shield walls offer a defensive bonus to soldiers next to each other
• When in Shield Wall, and F4.. they advanced in tight formation.. maintaining the wall
• Allow targeting... eg Calvary target archers
• Bonuses to certain troop categories .. eg Bonus to Melee Footmen
• Attack or Defensive Bonus... maybe someone with good tactics can actually beat an army twice or three times their size
• Overall... full army formations ... eg Archers forward / Archers rear / Calvary Left .. etc.. full formations like in Total War

It would just be cool if early on, your troops just seem uncoordinated. And as you gain tactics, you can see the discipline.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

One Step Ahead could be useful, sadly it doesn't work.

Every other skill is pretty worthless.

 

[Bibito]

Most of the skills are fairly lackluster... I never really even notice the difference except for weapons just aiming and hitting better.

The other skills just seem unnoticeable.

Some Ideas for Tactics

• Your soldiers are better disciplined.. stay in formation better when you F4 them.. so the high athletic guys don't run out in front and get slaughtered
• Shield walls offer a defensive bonus to soldiers next to each other
• When in Shield Wall, and F4.. they advanced in tight formation.. maintaining the wall
• Allow targeting... eg Calvary target archers
• Bonuses to certain troop categories .. eg Bonus to Melee Footmen
• Attack or Defensive Bonus... maybe someone with good tactics can actually beat an army twice or three times their size
• Overall... full army formations ... eg Archers forward / Archers rear / Calvary Left .. etc.. full formations like in Total War

It would just be cool if early on, your troops just seem uncoordinated. And as you gain tactics, you can see the discipline.

Good ideas, I really hate when I try to attack enemy horse archers with my melee horseman, and I find out they went to infantry or spread around map, A tactic skill can be enabling group targeting

 

[Sheepify]

Hell, I'd just want some deployable battlefield obstacles (spikes, "Frisian horses", the works) if my tactics are that much higher than the enemy.

Or a choice of a map deployment location, or a choice of maps (heavy terrain/flat) or anything that would actually make Tactics work for field-battles, too, even with the least-effort-implementation.

 

[Sword_of_Light]

Hell, I'd just want some deployable battlefield obstacles (spikes, "Frisian horses", the works) if my tactics are that much higher than the enemy.

Or a choice of a map deployment location, or a choice of maps (heavy terrain/flat) or anything that would actually make Tactics work for field-battles, too, even with the least-effort-implementation.

That almost suggests a White Wolf style of skill use - thing + thing = effect. In other words, in Exalted, give me an Occult + Intelligence roll to see if you can identify the Wyldling.

In this context, combining your Tactics and Engineering = placing ad hoc fortifications like spikes or abatis, before a battle. Alternately, you could have two variables, one based on Tactics, the other on Engineering. Tactics determines how much time you have to erect defensive measures, Engineering determines how much/many.

I also wish that Leadership a) grew faster, because I've had character levels in the high teens, but with leadership not even cracking 20, and b) had some active effects, like an ability to Rally. Its frustrating to see your troops breaking quickly - git back on the line and die for me, you bastards! - so it'd be a nice mechanism in the game to be able to do that. Its effectiveness might be Leadership + Charm, modified by the size of your unit and the numeric discrepancy between the opposing sides.

 

[Old-Bull]

Maybe they should let people with high tactics skill choose which troops from his army go in first and which ones come in later as reinforcements so you don't end up with 300 infantry all alone at the beginning of a battle.

Actually.....maybe they should let everyone do that.

 

[stringman7113]

+1