Chaotic battles

[An4Sh]

Before you flame me know this:
ive done a big search and didnt find a suggestion like this.

Right now the NPC's will stick very closely together and get in each other's way attack the same unit which isnt exactly instense and all the units do that,so why not make them spread out and attack different units like when they are charging towards someone but see that he is fighting one of his allies and theres another enemy nearby that isnt buisy he would charge at him instead,this would cause a very chaotic battle in my opinion if the AI is improved so the enemy would block more and not just keep running forward or back it, could work realy well if shield bashing is implemented.

you would have like a huge area withing the battlemap coverred in troops blood flying everywhere as your trying to defend your self from a berserk swadan knight  and you shield bash him to stun him a little which would buy just enough time to cut an arm of another enemy attacking a nearly dead ally only and that ally would save you with a quick powerful thrust to the heart of the knight that has recovered from the shield bash.

i cant write what i see in my imagination but if you have shadow of rome and finished it youl know what i mean,like in that cut-scene where a roman army is fighting gaulic barbarians.

Just imagine the chaos!!! 

 

[Raz]

Just imagine if this post had dots in em

No but I have to agree with you, and I've thought about it myself too. As it is now the warriors just heap up. Maybe let everybody search for an unengaged enemy or something like that.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

    I believe he is trying to tell us that the current AI fights in columns and wedges. And we want lines. Multiple points of battle instead of one.

 

[An4Sh]

Well?
No one likes this idea?         

 

[Deus Ex]

Well?
No one likes this idea?         

hmmm - well I imagine it is quite hard to 'program' Chaos 

But the idea of better AI is of course very good.  Whether it would turn out to be chaotic - I'm not sure.

On the other hand, I usually find that when my troops spread out, they die faster, so there seems to be some value in having them stay relatively close together...

DE

 

[Cajesar]

It seems like when your army is made up of footmen, while the enemies are all horsemen, it would be in your men's best interests to stick together so that the horeses can't make clear-cut passes, rather, they would get stuck in with all your footmen and get mobbed.

 

[Kissaki]

Yup, it's the biggest and oldest NO-NO in the book, to spread out your forces. And chaos is something one has always endeavored to create for the enemy, not for oneself.

 

[Cajesar]

Yes! But so many people think it would be realistic to purposefully screw over your own team by telling them to "go wherever you want, I don't care!". No offense to the guy who made this thread; he came up with a new idea, did his research, and it really isnt all that bad. Not having total order during a battle would be nice.

 

[Livonya]

I only play as a footman and I only use foot units.  I simply don't enjoy fighting on horseback though I do enjoy fighting against horse riding enemies.

I can only say this... an army of melee footman needs to stay as close together as possible.

In a battle I attempt to keep my units close, I attempt to flank as many enemy units as possible, and when I get flanked I throw up my shield and cower behind it as my comrades take down my attackers.

If my units all went running off then my army would be laying flat on their backs very quickly.

In a melee combat your goal should be to swarm the enemy.  A good mix of spear/pike men and sword/axe men is essential so that as many of your units as possible can hack away at the enemy.  

- Livonya

 

[Merentha]

Perhaps this is an option:  each troop has an AI skill, possibly based on tactics.  Low tactics, high level people seek out targets, high tactics people form formations, and low tactics, low level people are just a running mob.  Or, just have an 'enraged' tag or something, that causes units with it to seek out other targets, while everyone else forms a formation based on their tactics skill.

By tag, I meant in the python files.

 

[Cajesar]

The enraged thing is a bit far off, but the rest is good.

 

[thesneakster]

Hmm... that could be good, but mabye not linking it directly to the tacitcs skill. mabye you could 'train' your men to stick together more

 

[Büyüteç]

not exactly related to the topic, but I would like to get involved my enemy vs my other enemy combats to crush both of them. (So it can be a real chaotic battle since now you have two enemies in the battlefield and they also fight each other because they still don't trust other)

 

[calandale]

What I'd really like to see the soldiers do is attempt to charge through the enemy. A lot of the clustering is because the AI gets fixated on a target. Untrained troops might do this, but one of the first rules of hand-to-hand battles that you're taught is to go through the enemy, in order to allow more overall contact. If you stop, all momentum is lost.

 

[An4Sh]

Well i think that knights and such high ranking soldiers would stay in formation but Peasants,river pirates and mountain bandits?!
These barbarians wouldnt hold a line even without an enemy how on earth will they stick together so much when they some horse charging at them?!
these would sooner pull their ally and make him take the blow than risk losing their life, so they wouldnt realy trust each other that much now would they?

 

[calandale]

Yeah. There's definitely an issue here. Really, medieval peasant levies tended to be more of a hinderence to the army than an advantage. They could help occupy and forage, but in battles they were usually a waste. Nonetheless, where they were available they tended to be on the field. As to staying in formation, it's pretty simple to keep a unit in formation, until it has to do something (in reality - not the game). Even knights and regular foot (again in medieval period) were not well trained, and often fell into a kind of loose formation - which is why the tactic of penetration is especially important, and probably not too big a tweak to the game (unlike full formations). Certain units were an exception, of course, as were certain tactics (shield wall anyone?).

 

[Kissaki]

It was actually harder to get knights to stay in formation than peasantry. Poorly trained soldiers instinctually seek safety in numbers whereas knights, confident in their own abilities and eager to seek glory on the battlefield, were more likely to strike out on their own. With peasantry your main worry is that they'll run away, not that they'll attack different enemies.

 

[calandale]

There's a lot of debate on just how ordered a mounted charge of knights was. The received view, about 30 years ago, was that yes the knights just always plowed ahead into the enemy, willy-nilly. I believe that a closer scrutiny of some of the primary documentation seems to indicate otherwise, with ragged lines and wedge formations predominating, often with the infantry moving forward within the charge (hows that for outrunning horses?). Certainly there were cases (the name escapes me, it was during the War of the Roses - but there are many) where knights pursued an enemy flank off the battle field, depriving their side of the force. Likewise, the frustration which the Crusader Knights faced, often made them fall directly into making impetuous charges. Overall though, most of the textual data seems to suggest that charges were no where near as disordered as they are often believed to be.