Bigger battle options (and possibly bigger battlefields)

[DominicWhite]

Well, awesome as the game is, I know it can be more. Currently, my PC is barely breaking a sweat (several hundred FPS, when the most needed is 40-50) with the maximum battle size, and it's a pretty standard off-the-shelf model (nowadays).

So, Simple request. Allow players to set battle size as high as their PC can handle. I assume that this would be pretty simple to do - just adjust the maximum range of the battle size slider, and perhaps give a numerical indication of the number of simultaneous fighters it'll be rendering.

Face it, we all want collosal 50 v 50 (or larger!) battles, with us crashing through the furious melee like a man possessed.

Of course, if we're going to be having hundred man melees, perhaps bigger battlefields? Stuff that takes some time to ride across, and gives you time to position a large warband in preparation for a beatdown?

I'm trying to keep requests/suggestions pretty rational and down-to-earth. Stuff that could be very easily implemented, but here's one more, less easily included ideas.

Formations and individually commandable party stacks.

Those ten crossbowmen you've got? They've all over the place. Wouldn't it be so much better if you could say 'line up and stand on that hill to the right'? How about having those armored knights in a nice wedge to plough through enemy units?

That idea is just more optimistic daydreaming though.

 

[coconono]

a larger battlefield will require a more indepth ordering system for the troops. Otherwise its gonna be an exercise in getting mobbed and robbed.

 

[DominicWhite]

That's why I included all those ideas together - it's a logical progression of awesome.

More people on battlefield > Larger Battlefields > Command system/formations.

Although I'd be more than happy with just being able to have 20 v 20 fights as is. The current situation feels like it defeats the purpose of bringing 30 men into battle when you can only field - what, 10 at a time? It feels like there's little advantage to having a lot of weaker units, where you could just have a small band of elite warriors who will never be fighting against numerical odds.

 

[Lord Blade]

A 50 vs 50 fight would quickly turn into a me vs 49 enemy fight.

As far as I can tell, the AI for allies is still pathetic. They go down without putting up much of a fight.

I've sat there and watched two Knights fighting a single River Pirate. The Pirate took them both down and was only hit once.

That's truly pathetic.

 

[coconono]

A 50 vs 50 fight would quickly turn into a me vs 49 enemy fight.

As far as I can tell, the AI for allies is still pathetic. They go down without putting up much of a fight.

I've sat there and watched two Knights fighting a single River Pirate. The Pirate took them both down and was only hit once.

That's truly pathetic.

Most of my guys fight fairly competently. Just be sure to issue a charge order when the enemy gets too close your buddies. Otherwise they will sit there and die stupidly.

 

[DominicWhite]

A 50 vs 50 fight would quickly turn into a me vs 49 enemy fight.

As far as I can tell, the AI for allies is still pathetic. They go down without putting up much of a fight.

I've sat there and watched two Knights fighting a single River Pirate. The Pirate took them both down and was only hit once.

That's truly pathetic.

Most of my guys fight fairly competently. Just be sure to issue a charge order when the enemy gets too close your buddies. Otherwise they will sit there and die stupidly.

Indeed. I've seen 5 of my peasants slaughter 7 river pirates before. 10 peasants are a force to be reckoned with if grouped up and told to charge at the right moment.

Hell, in most battles, I act at little more than a distraction while my men do most of the killing. You must be doing something wrong if your allies can't do anything useful.

 

[Nairagorn]

Yeah, decent tactical control is a must, You can just let em run of on their own, but they're more likely to die in stupid ways.

I generally like to dismount my troops (unless I'm fighting a lot of horse archers) and sit em at the top of a hill, get those ranged weapon shots in, and then charge downhill. If I have time before combat, I like to spread the rider-less horses out as a sort off wall against charging horsemen.

If you wanna keep your guys on horses, you need to use the "follow me" command more often. Charge em from a hilltop, let em tangle a little, then lead them away to charge again.

Just some suggestions.

 

[Pie]

Just a quick idea whilst on the subject of allies but not really worthy of its own thread: I find it a bit frustrating when trying to do a "capture the nobleman" quest only for one of my troops to kill him, would it be an idea to have some way of being able to select people for non-lethal takedowns?

 

[Perturbatio]

I definitely think formations would be a good idea.

Maybe four standard formations (i.e. wedge, line, column) and three custom ones.

The configuration for the custom ones could simply be a 20x20 grid with pieces representing the various henchmen and you position the pieces as you see fit.

And add another two commands to the unit orders, hold formation and break formation.

 

[NorphTehDwarf]

A 50 vs 50 fight would quickly turn into a me vs 49 enemy fight.

As far as I can tell, the AI for allies is still pathetic. They go down without putting up much of a fight.

I've sat there and watched two Knights fighting a single River Pirate. The Pirate took them both down and was only hit once.

That's truly pathetic.

Most of my guys fight fairly competently. Just be sure to issue a charge order when the enemy gets too close your buddies. Otherwise they will sit there and die stupidly.

Indeed. I've seen 5 of my peasants slaughter 7 river pirates before. 10 peasants are a force to be reckoned with if grouped up and told to charge at the right moment.

Hell, in most battles, I act at little more than a distraction while my men do most of the killing. You must be doing something wrong if your allies can't do anything useful.

My allies are great at killing. However, I want to knock the enemy out so I can sell 'em. A "switch to clubs" command would be extremely useful.

 

[Pie]

Yep, i agree, although might that create problems if your allies have no blunt weapons?

 

[Lord Blade]

Well, I tend to tell my troops to hold position at first.
We then fire arrows into the enemy and can sometimes knock off a few right there.

When the enemy gets close, I give the charge command.

Thing is, I'll see my troops walk up to the enemy, who then hits them. Then as they're about to swing, they get hit again. Rinse and repeat.
My allies never seem to block. So the enemy just beats them down.

 

[DominicWhite]

Failing a 'switch to non-lethal weapons' command, a retreat command might be in order? Let the player move in to land those important knockout blows while your men hang back?

 

[Pie]

Good idea, that could be useful in other situations too. Although if your troops are on foot they might get run down by mounted guys, maybe having a "curl up in a ball" command would be helpful too

 

[Nairagorn]

Followd by a "suck thumb and think of happy places" command as that band of sea raiders has their jollies with your small low level caravan >.<

 

[timmo]

lol at above post, i think bigger battles should be put in, and if it's too hard for people, they can just use the slider??

Oh and give the slider a description on it for how big or small the battles are
like

<---- all the way to right = max 10 people per battle
----> all the way to the right = max 100 people per battle

One thing i wanna see most in this game is being able to have 100 v 100 battles, i hope the only thing holding this back is the commands structure, the option to have larger battles i think should just be included, what do you think armagen?