Battle Changer - Morale Issues

[candyman]

tl;dr, I downloaded the mnb battle sizer, upped it to 500, and now every battle they route after the first volley, meaning >50% of them get away

Just this morning I got sick and tired of having to fight 5 battles that were exactly the same to get my way through a 600 strong horde
So, I decided to download the mnb battle sizer that I've been hearing about

So, I downloaded, set the new size to 500, and tried a battle against a sarranid army with my 200 men

We get into the fight, and bam, my comp has a minispasm, and my entire army spawns on the field.... I'm thinking this is gonna be awesome

...

So, I do my basic defensive formation, Sergeants and huscarls 3-4 deep in the middle, Nord Veterans (In a different control group) on the left flank for a planned enveloping maneuverer, cavalry on the right, and Sharpshooters about 30 paces behind

My composition is 100 Sharpies, 40 huscs, 40 Sergeants and 20 Veterans (I had just restocked )

So as I'm awaiting their charge, I have my Sharpies hold their fire, since I don't want them to waste like 10 volleys to kill a single skirmisher or something

The initial cavalry charge passes as expected, they come up against my front line, they die, everyones happy

The infantry however, was the bit I was looking forward to

Roughly 300 assorted Sarranian groundpounders were charging their way towards my suddenly incredibly vulnerable looking line

I wait till they're about 20 paces away from my heavies, when I order my sharpies to loose their first volley
100 Siege Crossbows firing at once is a beautiful sound, by the way

I see their entire front line judder and fall
roughly 20 infantry went down in the first volley, and the left side of my screen is covered in teal text

So their line wavers for a moment, just long enough for my sharpies to ready another volley...
Pew pew pew!
Another wall of teal text

Just as I'm about to order my heavies to charge....
their entire line just... dissolves
every single one of the 150 or so infantry left breaks and runs for it
The next 2-3 reinforcement waves happen in a... similar fashion


The net result?
for me, 2 Wounded, 1 killed from the cavalry charges
For them.... 40 wounded, 200 killed and goddamn 250 troops routed
The deserted troops STILL outnumbered my army, and were similarly annihilated, over half of which routing again, after which I gave up

Now, I realise that this is kind of more accurate historically, in which medieval armies would retreat after taking 10-20% losses, but in a game, its a bit ridiculous,
I chose to play an almost entirely infantry based army for a reason, that being that all heavy cavalry was far too powerful, (I keep about 15 heavy cav, ie, my companions around), but now I find without having an incredibly large number of them, more then half of the opposing army gets away scot free

And since the only routers that show up on the map are those whom routed in the last "battle", the routers from the previous "battles", maybe 200 men or so seem to simply disappear off the face of the earth

Yes, I know tweakMB has a "cannot route if has been on the map for <X seconds" but thats a weak fix. What if I need to go to them? By the time my forces reach their guys, they've been on the map for long enough to route after taking a single volley =/

I'm running PBOD and Diplomacy

 

[Ogrecorps]

Okie dokie, lemme see here... I know I saw this mentioned recently...
First: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,164077.0.html
Second: I recommend the Floris Expanded Mod Pack because it includes both mods that you have then adds a whole bunch of cool items and the trooptree to utilize them AND prettier landscapes. Additionally it includes an OPTIONAL polearm fix and AI formations. The result of this is mobs of tightly packed infantry that will tear horses apart especially if they are rockin' polearms. This eliminates cavalry being overpowered and relegates them to mop-up and archer duty - which is often my only task after setting my troops out initially. Now, to be clear, the FEMP doesn't fix the routing issue and I have yet to try the fix suggested - which I certainly will since pulling 98 kills on routing troops myself in 1 battle (against a mere 220, 10 of which managed to escape) is quite tiresome.

 

[Filou]

I think your "problem" is in the way you fight.  Inflicting casualties to a quarter of a troop in 2 volleys will result in massive routing, regardless of the size of the group you're facing. 

I would suggest to let your shooters start firing at longer distance to spread out the damage, or keep your infantry line farther away from your bow line so they get in the think if it faster.

 

[Ogrecorps]

I think your "problem" is in the way you fight.  Inflicting casualties to a quarter of a troop in 2 volleys will result in massive routing, regardless of the size of the group you're facing. 

I would suggest to let your shooters start firing at longer distance to spread out the damage, or keep your infantry line farther away from your bow line so they get in the think if it faster.

But remember that the point of the GAME is satisfaction and what gets that for Candyman - besides luring children into caves - is puting 100 bolts into 20 faces at 20 paces and then still having enemies to fight. To be honest, I'm a little surprised there isn't some sort of setting for the courage of enemy troops to make the game more challenging that way too.

 

[The exceeding arrow]

with TweakMB you can re-set the time that has to pass before enemies/allies are allowed to route.

 

[Ludial]

I don't really see that much of a problem. You can simply play the honorable type and say that you wouldn't attack an enemy that has already given up and is running for their life. If you really want to get them, use lots of light cav. It gets really nice and messy and nobody escapes.

Another trick is to use only sharpies and nothing else. They double as really nice heavy inf and almost nothing escapes the rain of bolts.

So yeah, either you're an honor-bound and very slow footslogger that lets broken enemies escape, or you just go it without mercy and get everyone.

Also, I'm not certain, but I think that routers who manage to get to their destination are added to the garrison there. So you'd still get to fight them, and in a siege they have nowhere to run.

 

[candyman]

I don't really see that much of a problem. You can simply play the honorable type and say that you wouldn't attack an enemy that has already given up and is running for their life. If you really want to get them, use lots of light cav. It gets really nice and messy and nobody escapes.

Another trick is to use only sharpies and nothing else. They double as really nice heavy inf and almost nothing escapes the rain of bolts.

So yeah, either you're an honor-bound and very slow footslogger that lets broken enemies escape, or you just go it without mercy and get everyone.

Also, I'm not certain, but I think that routers who manage to get to their destination are added to the garrison there. So you'd still get to fight them, and in a siege they have nowhere to run.

Problem with letting them rout is that the AI still percieves the retreating forces as a threat, so they'll keep pew pew pewing at the forces running away rather then the 200 large reinforcement wave charging towards you >.>

Not much more frustrating then watching your entire crossbow line focusing on a single retreating spearman when theres a horder of sergeants bearing down on you =/

Also, routed troops only show on the map if they routed in the last "phase"
like, if I'm up against 1200 Sarranians, only about 600 will spawn in the first battle (300 initially, then 2 waves of 150 each or so) because I have battle sizer to 500, and say 250 soldiers routed away from that, and in the next battle, another 250 rout, only the second 250 appear on the world map, presumably because the first 250 melted away in to the wilderness while I was occupied with the second battle

Also, problem with using pure sharpies is 2fold
A, you can't separate them into 2 distinct, groups, that is, one to absorb the charge, and one to go pew pew pew, which means that the initial charge of cavalry will be met by crossbows, rather then tower shield and sword, which results in more losses then I'm honestly comfortable with
and B, You can't use another archer type unit, cause the only unit that can even compare to the rhodok sharpshooter in well balanced-ness is the sword sister, and them be way too hard to aquire to use as a meatshield....

And pure sharpies still has the whole, omg we must not let that single Sergeant get away omgzorz

 

[SpittingLlama]

I'm almost sure routed troops in multi-stage battles rejoin subsequent waves

 

[candyman]

Hmmm
actually, you may have a point there

thats something I'm gonna have to test myself

 

[Ogrecorps]

Hmmm
actually, you may have a point there

thats something I'm gonna have to test myself

I'd be interested in the results of those tests and will look into it myself as well. However that turns out though, I'm also going to be moving forward trying to toughen up my enemies as described in the link I gave above.

 

[Ludial]

I don't really see that much of a problem. You can simply play the honorable type and say that you wouldn't attack an enemy that has already given up and is running for their life. If you really want to get them, use lots of light cav. It gets really nice and messy and nobody escapes.

Another trick is to use only sharpies and nothing else. They double as really nice heavy inf and almost nothing escapes the rain of bolts.

So yeah, either you're an honor-bound and very slow footslogger that lets broken enemies escape, or you just go it without mercy and get everyone.

Also, I'm not certain, but I think that routers who manage to get to their destination are added to the garrison there. So you'd still get to fight them, and in a siege they have nowhere to run.

Problem with letting them rout is that the AI still percieves the retreating forces as a threat, so they'll keep pew pew pewing at the forces running away rather then the 200 large reinforcement wave charging towards you >.>

Not much more frustrating then watching your entire crossbow line focusing on a single retreating spearman when theres a horder of sergeants bearing down on you =/

Also, routed troops only show on the map if they routed in the last "phase"
like, if I'm up against 1200 Sarranians, only about 600 will spawn in the first battle (300 initially, then 2 waves of 150 each or so) because I have battle sizer to 500, and say 250 soldiers routed away from that, and in the next battle, another 250 rout, only the second 250 appear on the world map, presumably because the first 250 melted away in to the wilderness while I was occupied with the second battle

Also, problem with using pure sharpies is 2fold
A, you can't separate them into 2 distinct, groups, that is, one to absorb the charge, and one to go pew pew pew, which means that the initial charge of cavalry will be met by crossbows, rather then tower shield and sword, which results in more losses then I'm honestly comfortable with
and B, You can't use another archer type unit, cause the only unit that can even compare to the rhodok sharpshooter in well balanced-ness is the sword sister, and them be way too hard to aquire to use as a meatshield....

And pure sharpies still has the whole, omg we must not let that single Sergeant get away omgzorz

which is why you get two different groups of missile soldiers. And you seem to forget that Rhodok sharpies are also pretty good heavy inf. You have several options:

1. Take archers (Vaegir marksmen or Nord vets) and keep them in the front, spread out. When the first wave routs, leave the archers to shoot until they expend their ammo and order them to retreat behind your sharpies (who are standing closer instead). Keep everyone that still has something in their quiver shooting until the enemy comes close, then order the sharpies to hold fire. Voila, you have a shieldwall of fresh, equipped and willing to kill infantry meeting the shaken and wounded enemies!

2. Take Rhodok vet crossbows, Swadian sharpies or merc crossbows as your aux troops and keep them behind your Rhodok sharpies, spread out. Crossbows have much more staying power than bows and are generally better at breaking shields, so you can keep them in the back the whole battle. Rhodok sharps stay in the front and deal damage both at range and in close combat. If you`re worried about map speed, simply take merc xbows for their great athletics and aim (same as Rhodok vet xbows, batter than any Swadian), but keep them away from close combat. If you want better performance in close combat even for the aux shooters, just take Swadian sharps.

If you want to use Rhodok vet xbows (say, you`d rather keep the numbers of your sharpies consistent and keep vet xbows ready to upgrade on short notice) but are worried about how much they suck in close combat (because spiked staff+shield is possibly the worst combo ever) you can simply tweak their equipment. You need do nothing more than simply increase the speed (and maybe slightly increase the damage) of the spiked staff. Maybe also give them better helmets.

So there you have it.

 

[Ogrecorps]

The second, 3700 value, is for a unit to STOP running away.

The calculation for running away multiplies hitpoints by 4 AND an additional 10, 15 or 20 depending on easy/medium/hard campaign AI setting*. So a unit with 50 HP on hard campaign AI will run away if courage is below -500.

A unit with 20 HP left otoh would run away if courage < 1900.


*Does not happen for ally units, instead we take (hp * 4 - 100) * 10


I tried looking up how courage is calculated, but it's too difficult for me to bother. Distance from other units, units dying, etc affect it. An example: a friendly unit 1 meter from our unit dies. Our unit has no other friendly units near it. It will lose 2250 courage (an extreme case, usually you have friendly units nearby which reduce the loss and the distance to the friendly unit is larger).

How much courage a unit start with is calculated like this:
5000+level*35+rand(0,3000)+(partymorale-70)*30

So a level 10 unit start with on average 4750-7750 courage, depending on party morale. Doesn't seem like much to me.

If you wish to change how much courage a unit start with, instead of changing when they run away, you need to edit mission_templates.txt
Find lead_charge
You should see a few lines, then a couple lines beginning with -25. In the first of these find the value 5000 and change it to your liking. This is the base value.
Then find entrenched_encounter and do the same change there, again on the first line starting with -25.
I've not tested the change so can't guarantee it'll work but can't see why it wouldn't.

This means two things: first, up your campaign AI and it ups their initial courage and second, tweak some numbers and up their courage yourself. I am currently trying the latter.

 

[candyman]

That actually sounds fairly promising
Tell me how that works out

And on the routing front, I can tentatively confirm that retreating units join the next wave

 

[Ogrecorps]

That actually sounds fairly promising
Tell me how that works out

And on the routing front, I can tentatively confirm that retreating units join the next wave

So far I massively outnumber them or they slaughter me. Nords are great for this test cause I use xbowmen and they don't have any cav to come screw with me so they march into the hail and bunches of them freak out and run. No such luck so far since I'm a nord merc just now...

 

[candyman]

Also, I can confirm that routed troops DO NOT join the garrison that they rout to

Yeah, best way I found of testing routing is with mass Xbows on favorable terrain

And by the way, I tried the tweakMB option and the "minimum number of seconds before they rout" part is greyed out >=(

Edit: Did you make that banner for the floris expanded? its purty

 

[Ogrecorps]

Also, I can confirm that routed troops DO NOT join the garrison that they rout to

Yeah, best way I found of testing routing is with mass Xbows on favorable terrain

And by the way, I tried the tweakMB option and the "minimum number of seconds before they rout" part is greyed out >=(

Edit: Did you make that banner for the floris expanded? its purty

No, I didn't make it. I found it in their contributions section just today. Here it is if you want it: