Archery line

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Ancient Whale

Knight at Arms
I'm leading a warband of 50 swadian sharpshooters(or crossbowmen training to become sharpshooters). My tactic is to find a nice place, preferrably elevated, tell them to hold there and then go harass the enemy(by chopping their heads off) while they fire away. However, when I tell them to hold on level ground, they bunch up as close as they can and since they're programmed not to shoot if there is a friend between them and the target, only a very few men actually shoot at the enemy. So my suggestion is this:

When sharpshooters are holding position and find a friend blocking their way, they would move to their friend's side until they have a line of fire clear from any allies. This will in theory automatically create a single line of marksmen, which is not only more effective, but would look really, really cool.

Also, the AI does not seem to recognize elevation when calculating whether an ally is between their target and themselves. I notice this because Borcha, as a horse archer, circles the enemy while firing at them and so infringes upon my sharpshooters' line of fire quite a lot. They then need to recover before they can aim again, by which time Borcha has arrived again. So, OK, this is understandable if they're all at the same level, but if the archers are on the top of a big steep hill, they can suddenly shoot whenever they please without taking much of a risk of hitting Borcha. The AI, sadly, does not recognize this. My suggestion is that whatever method the AI uses to see whether a friend is in the way of their shooting would also take into account elevation.

And yes, I have a habit of using a lot of words to say very little, I know.
 
I really dislike the fact that your archers only get to shoot one or two arrows in most maps before they charge the enemy.
 
ive actually had my archers kill more of my guys than the enemy which is quite sad... so i think your idea would be a great improvement
 
Every now and then at the very start of a battle when everyone's just spawned, an archer will just randomly shoot another archer out of spite. It's quite odd to spawn, order everyone off their horses and follow me and hear 'DOCK, AaAAarhh' and 'swadian sharpshooter killed by swadian sharpshooter'.

I'm wondering how you'd get units to recognise hills. You can use calculus to find local maxima (hilltops) and then designate an area around this (where the gradient isn't too steep) which the AI considers tactically favourable, meaning they'll tend to go there.

What rules could dictate forming formations? Ranges units work best if they form a line 1 to 2 people deep, while footmen are more effective with deeper walls, so they can soak up charging cavalry. You also have to consider how curved the formation should be. There's no point in having a long, thin line of archers when there khergit horsemen all around.

Here's the logic I would use. Upon ordering the 'fall into formation' command, the game generates an imaginary line on which the troops are compelled to stand on. This line is generated based on where the enemies are. The average of the directions the enemies are currently at is taken, and this forms a right angle with the middle of the formation. Now the largest deviation from this angle is taken, (say a person on horseback who charged to the side) and this dictates how curved the line is. Since there is always some deviation unless there is only one enemy, this line will always be part of a circle. The larger the maximum deviation, the smaller the circle becomes, so that if your troops are surounded completely, the circle will be small enough for them all to stand on.
Then there's the length of this line. The length of this line (or how much of the circle's arc this line takes up) is directly proportional to how many troops are joining this formation, but not exactly. If the number of troops is X, the length of the line is 2/3*X+2 or something with similar features. This means that the smaller the troop number is, the more spread out they will be on this line, but only to a certain extent.

Now once you order the command and the imaginary line is defined, the troops space themselves evenly along this line, based on which space is closest to them, and going along a hierarchy when the closest space is already taken. Perhaps if the troops are more than four, they stagger themselves, so every odd troop takes 2 steps forward and every even troop takes 2 steps backwards. Doing such a thing will make them more able to resist cavalry.

There are a couple of problems with formation behavior though. Should this formation change depending on what the enemy's doing? (meaning, should the imaginary line change in curvature when the enemy surrounds you?) If you order a formation when khergits are all charging towards you from the other side of the map, the formation will be quite straight, which is of no use once they've encircled you. Obviously the formation line needs to be able to change based on what the enemies are doing, but not at the expense of fighting the enemy when you have the chance.

Secondly, what does a formation do when you order 'charge' or 'follow me'? If your troops are in circle formation, and you say 'follow me' and go galloping off, do they remain in circle formation but all move in the same direction, or do they form a different formation or what?
 
Secondly, what does a formation do when you order 'charge' or 'follow me'? If your troops are in circle formation, and you say 'follow me' and go galloping off, do they remain in circle formation but all move in the same direction, or do they form a different formation or what?
i think that calvary should move into a somewhat spread line behind you, while infantry travels in a semi-circle behind them. the line would best allow calvary to use their polearms and swords, while the infantry could take out the calvary that gets past yours. the horse hits one person, and the two on the side take him out when the horse rears. of course, i'm not the most skilled programmer and i'm only taking calc next quarter, so i don't know if those two would work without a lot of complex coding/math...

btw, i'd like to say hi. i've been lurking here for about a week and this seems like a very active and helpful forum.
 
Well welcome to the forums then.
I do no programming whatsoever, but i'm reasonably familiar with the logic computers use to do things. After all, Delphi, c++ and all the other computer languages are just ways of expressing logic in a way that a computer will understand. (and just like real languages, they have their inherant structures, exceptions and quirks.)
 
mmmm.... formations...

we could make this game in to Medieval: Total War.

Fun fun! have your cavalry flank the enemy, while you lead your infantry in a deep column behind you, doing so as your archers stand ready on the nearby hills, preparing to pick off the enemy once the fight starts.

Only problem I could see is... wouldn't the enemy use formation? I mean.. I don't wanna travel into a group of 20 dumb-as-rock river pirates and find they're all traveling in arrow-straight lines, like trained, professional soldiers. This would seem unrealistic. However, if the enemy could not use formations, it would also make it unrealistic if the Vaegir and Swadians did not use formations while you did.
 
Well i'd like the game difficulty to ramp up when you face vaegir/ swadian troops.

River pirate and bandit AI could be as it is now, rather simple, but the Ai of a Swadian war party could be much more advanced.
 
Considering the fact that the best AI we can see around in games today is mostly somewhat dumb (RTW), I don't think it's a good idea to cripple it further.
 
Ingolifs said:
blablabla

I was actually thinking that the real beauty of the suggestion was it's simplicity. You don't need a formation command or an imaginary line. The archers form a line automatically to be able to shoot at the enemy. If there are khergits surrounding the archers, they can get a line of fire without forming a line, and so will theoretically automatically form a circle.

But I would still like formation commands, forming squads to be ordered around, and your cavalry resistance suggestion would be nice, but there are tons and tons of topics about formation commands already out there.
 
Yeah, I have this same problem with my men not fighting. I modded M&B so that Swadian Sergeants only carry throwing axes. And then I got as many of them as I could... so I have this rolling army of Swadian Sergeants running around. But generally, they form this giant ball of men (regardless of whether they're told to follow me, hold here, charge, or nothing) and therefore very few of them bother to fight.

I'd like a command to order my archers to spread out to form a firing line, or something similar.
 
What would be really nice. If you could coimmad soldiesrs seperatly... I want my horses to charge, not my archers... to just get trambled and horse humped to death...
 
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