SP - World Map Army outriders

[Pentagathoos]

I'm not sure if this would mess up the campaign balance, but it would be pretty cool to have smaller groups scouting ahead of armies but remaining within reinforcement range, these could be made up from each lord party that forms the army (pooled between them, so that say for every 3 lords in an army there is one party of outriders formed from a portion of their cavalry units, or maybe there would just be one group formed from all of the lords parties) and these parties could use their speed to catch enemy lord parties instead of having the whole army fruitlessly trying to chase a smaller party. It also makes sense, using cavalry to harass an enemy force would slow their movements and allow your main army to catch up with them and this was done historically.
This could also be expanded upon in future to increase the depth of army management and use of tactics and scouting skill, for example you might have a chance to ambush enemy outriders (ie fight them on their own without the army they're attached to or fight them with a group chosen beforehand like in hideout raids) in order to weaken the main army, and possibly affecting their army's spotting range or speed. The likelihood of success of an ambush could be determined by your tactics skill and your party's scouting skill, as well as the quality of troops chosen to participate in this ambush. You could also have the chance for a critical failure, where your ambush group is detected and attacked, being captured by the enemy and so weakening your own army/party. If the player joins the ambush you could be captured yourself, with your party being commanded by one of your companions until you are ransomed (or until it gets captured), if not then the ambush battle would be auto-resolved. Successfully taking out the scout parties might give you a chance to ambush the main army as well (I'm pretty sure the devs talked about having ambushes as a feature years back, perhaps this has been shelved or maybe it's a goal already.)

Edit:
Just to be clear, the primary gameplay function of this would be to form some kind of zone of control around the armies roaming the map so that the player and enemy parties can't just slip past them.

 

[Nerethi]

+1

 

[niekdegrijze]

+1, would love to see this.

For now I would suggest the following mod:
Party AI Overhaul and Commands

Party AI Overhaul and Commands

Adds giving advanced orders to your Clan parties on the campaign map, including control over their recruitment. Restricts AI sieges to borders of Kingdoms. Makes the AI more likely to conquer and less

www.nexusmods.com

You can have one of you clan parties follow your army.
You can alt+left click on an enemy party and have your clan party engage them(they will attack even if outnumbered). this gives you time to catch up.
This mod at least takes care of a part of you suggestion.

 

[Pentagathoos]

Ah thanks, I had been planning on avoiding mods whilst BL was in early access but so many of these just seem like they add features the core game should already have so it might be time to change my mind.

 

[Nerethi]

Ah thanks, I had been planning on avoiding mods whilst BL was in early access but so many of these just seem like they add features the core game should already have so it might be time to change my mind.

Devs should even grab some ideas from nexus

 

[echoco]

I think this is a nice idea but I also think it'll make snowballing even worst. Smaller parties/armies would be caught and destroyed by big armies very easily. Khuzait has a lot of cavalry and might even be able to destroy factions piecemeal.

 

[Apocal]

I think this is a nice idea but I also think it'll make snowballing even worst. Smaller parties/armies would be caught and destroyed by big armies very easily. Khuzait has a lot of cavalry and might even be able to destroy factions piecemeal.

I agree it would increase he power differential between strong armies and weak ones. Weak armies are almost always small armies and there they at least have some advantage in speed. Taking that away by giving large armies -- especially those with lots of mounted units -- an ability to send out tacklers would mean weak armies have no ability to survive except by scattering.

So there should be a counterplay: rearguard detachments that could occupy the outriders/vanguard or even the main army if strong enough to last. Basically the same thing reverse.

 

[Nerethi]

So there should be a counterplay: rearguard detachments that could occupy the outriders/vanguard or even the main army if strong enough to last. Basically the same thing reverse.

Something like an ambush scenario where you can place your full force around enemy outriders, with limited time to route them : routed enemies going back to their army, killed ones really removed from attacking army.

But if time runs out, the battle ends (maybe with all ennemies retreating, so triggering a virtual victory of the weaker party), but right after they have then to face the enemy full force or surrender.

Such a mechanism would give big armies a way to catchup with small ones, and on the other side, a chance to small but strong and well led parties a chance to erode the strength of an invincible army, by trapping their outriders.