battle advice

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hey guys so this patch is fun and all, but when i get into any kind of series battle im noticing a strange trend. i early on can get an advantage, but seemingly whether i get spread out or not casualties just end up being 1 to 1 after an initial battle period. i can reform them and do all kinds of things but i always end up with the same result. doesnt matter if im flanking enemies or personally killing hordes myself after an initial battle period where i gain a slight advantage i just cant help but feel like i dont matter anymore. last battle i looked up and all my archers were in perfect position on a hill above the whole seen but their rate of fire had basically stopped to a trickle.

Am i running out of arrows? when things start getting confusing i either try and reform my lines or try and put them under captain command, but ya i noticed the same thing with sieges as well. i personally had killed over 100 guys just spamming arrows, and we held every gate and wall, but suddenly i looked up and i was 1 to 1 k/d ratio and suddenly battle was over and shocked to find all my men had died (enemy only had a slight advantage to start and was level 3 castle as well).

so i guess in short, what can i actually do to effect the outcome of the battle because if i do nothing or just had them charge i feel like the casualties would end up being the same...

edit: oh and enemy fight to the last now? last several battles no one was running away...
 
okay just had another battle and this is wtf im talking about. i had them to a 2 to 1 advantage, but eventually died because of course im getting hit by rapid fire arrow no matter where i go on the field even if its behind a wall of friendlies or even cover, and as soon as i go down i go from having a 2 to 1 kill ratio in my favor to watching the kill feed suddenly turn red and not a single one of my guys is killing the enemy despite having unit cohesion and height and good line of fire for my archers and cavalry in flanking position and i went from my advantageous kill count to a 2 to 1 in their favor kill count by the end.

and is there some kind of quota system were nobles HAVE to die in every battle now? both sides casualty ratings are just obscene.
 
I have already turned my back to the game, but gave it a try in 1.58 the other day. Ouite shure the devs changed something as I had the same battle experiences as you have had. What looks like an easy sweep turns in a slaughter with appalling losses once the battle is over. Often enough my forces were utterly crushed and I found myself in chaines...
Let´s look where it might come from. I noticed that the AI Armys have a much better line up then some month ago. No more recruits and tier 1 troops in abundance but a good solid army composition of experienced troops with a lot more cavalry as we has been seen previously. I noticed that the enemies heavy cavalry spawns when the first wave of the enemy is broken and our troops are in full pursuit. Thus before I am able to comand, control and regroup, the entire engagement is going worse turning to a bloodbath.
I noticed also that only the first rank of my archers is firing, second and third rank fills in the losses only. Not like the enemy, which is aproaching in skirmish order with all men firing. Once given command to the sergeants, my archers run to and fro and are even less useful, being cut down by enemy cavalry in the end.
My heavy cavalry is getting spiked up by enemy spearmen as I have no control which enemy they attack unless I lead them in person.
It seems that engaging the enemy in batlle has become as much frustrating as every thing else in this game. Well the game, it looks good, at least...
 
You need to keep the battle away from the enemy spawn point. If you let your men fight the enemy at the spawn point, they can be surrounded and cut to pieces when the new wave of enemies magically appears. Like Julius Caesar said in his war chronicles, never fight the enemy on unfavorable ground. The enemy spawn point is as unfavorable as ground gets in this game.

When a war first starts the lords usually have some very good troops. Once they have wiped once their army will be filled with recruits.
 
If you look at the chat(bottom right) you will see that your army has a different behavior as at that time when you died. In fact the Archers will skirmish more and doesnt stand stationary on a hill. If they are out of arrows they will go in melee mode. At all your army will advance, move back or get slaughtered. So the best Tipp I can give to you is.... don't die. Because of the movement, Archers become less efficient and if your army advance to the enemy spawn point, they will be just meatballs for the enemy. Since the spawn point of the enemy always varies but your spawn point will be always the same. If you die just end the battle and make an auto resolve(when sieging just move away) if you think you have the advantage(like 400kills vs 75) in the real battle where you died.
 
You need to keep the battle away from the enemy spawn point. If you let your men fight the enemy at the spawn point, they can be surrounded and cut to pieces when the new wave of enemies magically appears. Like Julius Caesar said in his war chronicles, never fight the enemy on unfavorable ground. The enemy spawn point is as unfavorable as ground gets in this game.

When a war first starts the lords usually have some very good troops. Once they have wiped once their army will be filled with recruits.
ya found that out the hard way when they started spawning directly behind my flanking force (this is a medival game, devs didnt think surrounding the enemy is a valid tactic?)

but regardless, i still loose companions whether they are out of position or not. also again, the first wave or two is never when i have a problem, its some time later when my guys seem to stop attack or firing missiles and the kill feed just turns red for a reason i still cant fathom.
 
ya found that out the hard way when they started spawning directly behind my flanking force (this is a medival game, devs didnt think surrounding the enemy is a valid tactic?)

but regardless, i still loose companions whether they are out of position or not. also again, the first wave or two is never when i have a problem, its some time later when my guys seem to stop attack or firing missiles and the kill feed just turns red for a reason i still cant fathom.
It's a battle size issue.
Max battle size is 1000. If the battle is bigger than that, they have to spawn somewhere.
 
It's a battle size issue.
Max battle size is 1000. If the battle is bigger than that, they have to spawn somewhere.
ya altho spawning in 10ft behind the battle (and consequently right on me) always comes as a shock, or if it wasnt directly around me, i start getting arrows hit me out of literal nowhere lol
 
but regardless, i still loose companions whether they are out of position or not. also again, the first wave or two is never when i have a problem, its some time later when my guys seem to stop attack or firing missiles and the kill feed just turns red for a reason i still cant fathom.

Maybe your soldiers got wounded in the first two waves? I mean if they survive the 2 wave with 10hp, a stone will do the rest
 
ya altho spawning in 10ft behind the battle (and consequently right on me) always comes as a shock, or if it wasnt directly around me, i start getting arrows hit me out of literal nowhere lol

It's the case of all MB games. As soon as you reach battle size limit, spawning point mechanics begin. And larger the battle size, worst the effect actually is.

Typical battle goes like this:
Your and enemy forces meet and you start slowly killing your way through them until you kill enough of them for spawn to start. At that pint you are somewhere near the enemy spawn point so all of the sudden, you are outnumbered, because you have taken looses and possibly also surrounded. Your reinforcement will also spawn when your numbers go down, but your spawn point is on the other side of the map and while your reinforcements walk to you, you and most of your men are dead.

It's important to watch out for this and when you notice the spawn "moment", you need to go defensive and reform. Fact that what is in reality enemy reforming with their reinforcements can easily be mistaken for a flight makes this even more dangerous, because player instinct is to all out charge to kill as many fleeing enemies as possible. So your men tend to reach enemy spawn point piecemeal as well.

As for dying in battle, when player goes down, his army takes morale hit if I remember correctly. Try to stay alive.
 
I'm noticing the kill ratio is very close to 1:1 too. I remeber previous versions had victories with 2:1 ratio, but 1.59 showed a pretty consistent 1:1. I managed to get my side's kills to be +100 above the enemy (as captain) but once I died the other side quickly catch up for 1:1 ratio again. I wonder if this is one of the things TW did to curbe snowballing, making sure the victor always a significant number. For sure though it takes away what little tactics the battles has.
 
I noticed the 1:1 K/D ratio as well. its even more desastrous during sieges as apparently the defenders are instantly incapable of putting up a fight....

My party also seems to do alot better when auto resolving then when im leading, really noticable with high tier units. Anyone know whats up with that?
 
This is really frustrating especially when you don't command the entire army but you're just a commander. AI never allows you to command the infantry and entire army charges whether you outnumber the enemy or not. Cavalry simply rushes forward to enemy lines and one or two lord or companion dies right at the start. Then you get struck with enemy arrows all the way. Eventually your forces get massacred because you do the fighting where they spawn. AI realizes it after half of the army is lost, pulls horsemen and archers back to regroup but not the infantry so they keep going in a sweet straight line to enemy's bulk where they're cut down to pieces. It is so annoying that I never join in a fight anymore that I can't command the entire army. I sit outside and wait until 2 armies melt each other down to a point that my party's presence matters.

Other way around has it's flaws too unfortunately: Horse archers. Enemy sits at their spawn point and waits for you to come to them? Make your horse archers follow you and circle around them a few times until you kill 5-6 men. They immediately decide to charge and this time their army tastes the frustration stated above.
 
hey guys so this patch is fun and all, but when i get into any kind of series battle im noticing a strange trend. i early on can get an advantage, but seemingly whether i get spread out or not casualties just end up being 1 to 1 after an initial battle period. i can reform them and do all kinds of things but i always end up with the same result. doesnt matter if im flanking enemies or personally killing hordes myself after an initial battle period where i gain a slight advantage i just cant help but feel like i dont matter anymore. last battle i looked up and all my archers were in perfect position on a hill above the whole seen but their rate of fire had basically stopped to a trickle.

Am i running out of arrows? when things start getting confusing i either try and reform my lines or try and put them under captain command, but ya i noticed the same thing with sieges as well. i personally had killed over 100 guys just spamming arrows, and we held every gate and wall, but suddenly i looked up and i was 1 to 1 k/d ratio and suddenly battle was over and shocked to find all my men had died (enemy only had a slight advantage to start and was level 3 castle as well).

so i guess in short, what can i actually do to effect the outcome of the battle because if i do nothing or just had them charge i feel like the casualties would end up being the same...

edit: oh and enemy fight to the last now? last several battles no one was running away...
honestly the point is to not die. lol even with death disabled you can get wounded and be knocked out of the battle.
its better to hide behind a shield turtling all fight, than go in kill 50 men and get downed. so your troops have to mindlessly charge with 0 strategy.

how big are your armies? what about your enemies? army power level can tell a lot about the kind of casualties you'll get.
 
This is really frustrating especially when you don't command the entire army but you're just a commander. AI never allows you to command the infantry and entire army charges whether you outnumber the enemy or not. Cavalry simply rushes forward to enemy lines and one or two lord or companion dies right at the start. Then you get struck with enemy arrows all the way. Eventually your forces get massacred because you do the fighting where they spawn. AI realizes it after half of the army is lost, pulls horsemen and archers back to regroup but not the infantry so they keep going in a sweet straight line to enemy's bulk where they're cut down to pieces. It is so annoying that I never join in a fight anymore that I can't command the entire army. I sit outside and wait until 2 armies melt each other down to a point that my party's presence matters.

Other way around has it's flaws too unfortunately: Horse archers. Enemy sits at their spawn point and waits for you to come to them? Make your horse archers follow you and circle around them a few times until you kill 5-6 men. They immediately decide to charge and this time their army tastes the frustration stated above.
what you can do is pause the game right before a fight is going to happen. leave the army. then join the fight as your own little party once it starts. now you can command your entire party independent of your ally army.
 
I sit outside and wait until 2 armies melt each other down to a point that my party's presence matters.
what you can do is pause the game right before a fight is going to happen. leave the army. then join the fight as your own little party once it starts. now you can command your entire party independent of your ally army.
Yes, this is exactly what I'm doing but it's still annoying when you join at the beginning because your party is like 10% of the entire army so your tactics won't save your allies from annihilation. I keep waiting until our allies more or less about to lose, then join, win the battle so army leader loves me even more, their wounded heal in time and enemy army vanishes. Not that it matters though they come back with even a bigger one next day.
 
Well a bit late to the party. But generally try not to get knocked out. the AI will typically do really poorly unless your army completely outclassess the enemy in terms of quality since the AI will typically try and play super defensively and throw away your troops with terrible tactics. Though if you do outclass them.. It will utterly curbstomp them.

I suppose the big question here is what your force composition looks like. IE ratio of Infantry/Archers/Cavalry/Horse Archers since having a good mix of all 4 can do quite a bit. With Archer Infantry delivering the initial blow, cavalry moves in to mop up and make it harder to regroup and the horse archers being a real pain in the posterior. At least in my experience.

Beyond that, good battle tactics can further give you an edge. A personal favorite is the Infantry in the centre with archers on the sides to create crossfire, plus they can typically keep firing even as the infantry engages. And fire into the backs of the retreating infantry as well. Plus they're less likely to start firing at ineffective ranges as well and waste their arrows.

Another thing to consider would be using Crossbowmen. More accurate, more punch per show and lower rate of fire. Tends to have a lot fewer cases of them firing off their entire load before the enemy attacks and they tend to get a lot of killing done. Additionally if you're using Imperial ones, the Sergeant Crossbowmen are a handy Infantry reserve that can help deliver some extra punches in my experience if needed (Though a lot of the time.. that's not necessary)
 
ya ive been trying to fight my last battle over and over again against khuzait and my input really doesnt matter. i try squares, i try circles, i try lines, i switch between shield walls against arrows nothing makes a difference whatsoever.

i dont just feel like im wasting my time, im pretty sure i am. this game has a k/d quota and even if you have perfect position and the enemy is in the worst way it can be you are going to meet this bull**** margin. theres just no other explanation when you have a line of elite troops get slaughtered randomly against a bunch of looters and recruits who are scattered and have a lower position and who is surrounded by my own cavalry (after seeing off the literally hundreds of enemy cavalry).

im just wasting my time at this point and really why bother? its all just bs anyways. (and 4-5 of my people die to boot? screw this.)

and im no noob. ive got 850 hours in this game already and at this point i think its just broken.
 
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