Combat Experience: the Problem of Infantry vs Ranged/Cav

[Maximum997]

They need to fix battlefield balance too.

Infantry right now has only one purpose - to be arrow sponges. And nothing more.

 

[GitiUsir]

Hmmmmm ...
But if your recruits watch crossbowmens shooting and kill, it's more like a supporter of a basketball match, not a defender.

I remember playing captain mode shielding archers from enemies while they were stacking up kills. And they were more than happy to shoot me in the back when I was in melee. Guess who got more kills and how many times we lost thanks to their trigger happy habits. Like "please stay there as long as you can doing nothing but dying while I'm seeing myself as the best fighter around". I suppose you are one of those team players.

 

[pTivo]

I remember playing captain mode shielding archers from enemies while they were stacking up kills. And they were more than happy to shoot me in the back when I was in melee. Guess who got more kills and how many times we lost thanks to their trigger happy habits. Like "please stay there as long as you can doing nothing but dying while I'm seeing myself as the best fighter around". I suppose you are one of those team players.

I don't think presuming people gameplay is usefull in this kind of argument. It's not even constructive and often wrong. Instead, let's focus on sentences and facts, as :

I mean, you need to practice something to become good at, no?

For now, it seems like wounded soldiers already gain xp also if they don't kill someone else. Just by defending. (i need to verify if they have inflicted some damages before getting wounded)
If each soldiers on the battlefield gain xp, by doing nothing ("i want my recruits to lvl up so i shield them behind the line and close to the retreat line") or fighting as beasts or sniping, you'll have an full elite army after some battles, no more low tier troops and recruits (and realism btw). At this point, it's equal to playing in very easy difficulty.
This is why i would prefer a better reward for training infantry, nonetheless casualties. As a better armor or improved skills. Which will be more historically correct. Difficulty is part of the game. But balance still not.

 

[remorse]

Of course agree with all this. Hopefully they'll consider addressing it soon.

 

[GitiUsir]

I don't think presuming people gameplay is usefull in this kind of argument. It's not even constructive and often wrong.

For now, it seems like wounded soldiers already gain xp also if they don't kill someone else. Just by defending. (i need to verify if they have inflicted some damages before getting wounded)
If each soldiers on the battlefield gain xp, by doing nothing ("i want my recruits to lvl up so i shield them behind the line and close to the retreat line") or fighting as beasts or sniping, you'll have an full elite army after some battles, no more low tier troops and recruits (and realism btw). At this point, it's equal to playing in very easy difficulty.
This is why i would prefer a better reward for training infantry, nonetheless casualties. As a better armor or improved skills. Which will be more historically correct. Difficulty is part of the game. But balance still not.

I'm presuming you playing that way because you don't grasp the idea of team play. Blocking the way to those crossbowmen, catching arrows to the face, fighting in melee when they attack... infantry can die easily without a single kill and still they are doing their part.

If you are worried about levelling recruits just placing them in the rear, that's not how it works. You need to calculate the enemy strenth divided by your own strength. If there is a lot of high tier soldiers there will be very little experience or none at all to distribute, if strength ratio is similar the experience gained will be high, and supposedly the recruits will be needed to win.

Anyway it's not unusual to place green troops in reserve. They need to learn valuable lessons getting used to chaos in battle and converting the training drills into real experience. In real battles commanders would be pleased if green troops just stayed where they were told to stay. Usually infantry is holding a position negating that position to enemies and blocking the way. That's something weather you see it or not.

I could ellaborate more but not in the mood.

 

[geala]

Good ideas. However more or less this problem is non-existent for me, as I use the mod "Training Tweak" which gives daily xp to all the soldiers. If a mod can do it, it does not seem to be an unsolvable problem deeply embedded in the code.


I have two other problems, one general and one with infantry:

1. Defeats are too harsh in the results (= total loss + boring grind to build up a new force from scratch, even with high training xp), leading to "easy fights-seeking", avoiding risks and boring campaign play.

2. Infantry moves too slowly on the map. My biggest problem and the main reason I mainly use cavalry although I made horses very expensive, except sumpter horses (horses and war horses cost 3 to 5 times of vanilla). Using sumpter horses for the infantry does not solve the problem, stacks are still not fast enough.

Historically spoken, that's nonsense. Infantry armies were usually not much slower on longer distances than cavalry troops. On a tactical level, detachments of cavalry in an infantry based force could catch enemy troops and force battle, so the infantry could join (although battles usually never could be forced, they mostly only took place in agreement of both sides).

So I'm for making infantry armies with enough sumpter horses as fast as cavalry only stacks, otherwise the unrealistic map rules of M+B make infantry use a burden anyway.

 

[Maximum997]

Historically spoken, that's nonsense. Infantry armies were usually not much slower on longer distances than cavalry troops.

Regular speed wasnt super fast yes. But they was able to do insane force marches.

I think that footmen on horses bonus should be the same as cavalry bonus.

 

[TomaSkTemplar]

problem with ranged is too few bolts, arrows, and way too fast = daamging projectiles to to very inefficient armor.

 

[Badcritter]

For now, it seems like wounded soldiers already gain xp also if they don't kill someone else. Just by defending. (i need to verify if they have inflicted some damages before getting wounded)

Each soldier type has a pool of XP. A wounded soldier can get XP, either because it earned it before it got wounded, or because another soldier of the same type earned it.

eg. if you enter battle with 2 Vlandian Footmen, 1 of which is wounded and one of which is combat ready... if the combat ready one goes all rambo in a battle and earns enough XP to fill the Vlandian Footman troop type's XP bar twice, you will be able to upgrade both of them. The wounded soldier doesn't get XP from any other type of troop though, only exactly the same tier and type as it. The active troop could earn the XP to upgrade himself and his wounded teammate over multiple battles, provided you don't upgrade the active one when you first get the opportunity. If you upgrade the active one, the wounded one is stuck until he recovers (or another Vlandian Recruit gets upgraded to a Vlandian Footman so you have an active one again, who can "earn XP for the wounded one"). Think of each line on your party screen as a single entity when it comes to the accumulation of XP. Only active troops can earn it, but all of that type can benefit from it potentially.

I like the idea of earning XP for getting hit, or succesfully blocking damage. Makes a lot of sense, is in theme with the "learning by doing" approach of the game, and rewards infantry for performing their role.
I like the idea @somethinglightthat proposed for maxed out troops distributing their XP to lower troops. AFAIK that doesn't currently happen, I believe their XP vanishes into thin air and that has always bothered me a bit.

Less XP for leveling infantry is a maybe imo. Probably not necessary if the above are implemented effectively.

Not a fan of the entire army receiving distribution of the total XP value of the fight D&D style. I'd prefer to have some agency in how different types of troops in my army advance rather than their relative progress being fixed. It would probably require less XP for leveling infantry layered on so that your infantry would not constantly remain underleveled compared to the rest of your troops (due to higher mortality rate). Obviously the problem of underlevelled infantry already exists, but you can take steps to do something about it. If XP distribution is fixed, it would not be possible to compensate through your own actions - you would be at the mercy of whatever bonus the devs decided to give infantry to help them keep up, and too bad if your performance doesn't match their formula.

 

[pTivo]

Each soldier type has a pool of XP. A wounded soldier can get XP, either because it earned it before it got wounded, or because another soldier of the same type earned it.

eg. if you enter battle with 2 Vlandian Footmen, 1 of which is wounded and one of which is combat ready... if the combat ready one goes all rambo in a battle and earns enough XP to fill the Vlandian Footman troop type's XP bar twice, you will be able to upgrade both of them. The wounded soldier doesn't get XP from any other type of troop though, only exactly the same tier and type as it. The active troop could earn the XP to upgrade himself and his wounded teammate over multiple battles, provided you don't upgrade the active one when you first get the opportunity. If you upgrade the active one, the wounded one is stuck until he recovers (or another Vlandian Recruit gets upgraded to a Vlandian Footman so you have an active one again, who can "earn XP for the wounded one"). Think of each line on your party screen as a single entity when it comes to the accumulation of XP. Only active troops can earn it, but all of that type can benefit from it potentially.

thanks you sir

 

[Ichon]

1. Give infantry units a significant amount of experience for receiving damage, not just dealing it: An infantry shield wall that just holds the line while archers pound the enemy, or cavalry swoops in, is 100% doing its job. This would make it much easier to level infantry lines specifically.
   
   
2. Reduce the experience requirement for leveling up infantry lines: Level faster, but also die faster (as they already do) - a low experience requirement embraces infantry cores as expendable.
   
   
3. Reduce the wage cost of infantry: As it stands, T5 infantry cost the same per day as T5 cavalry - many of which actually have perfectly viable melee loadouts when unhorsed. Sure, the T5 cav costs you an extra horse + heavy horse along the way - but that price ends up being a very small consideration (especially in midgame onwards, where your real concern is: "how many battles can I win decisively, before this army starts to need fresh blood?"). Overall, not a fan of this approach, as it pushes even further the idea that infantry is an inferior, cost-effective troop type... but then again, the game has no T6 infantry. So they are, in Bannerlord currently, designed as an inferior, cost-effective troop type.
   
   
4. Treat the army as a team and spread out the experience evenly (thanks to GitiUsir): Distribute experience evenly to every soldier in the battle. Battles would give experience according to number and quality of enemies compared to number and quality of friendlies.

Hmm, interesting- the very first post I completely agree with on this forum.

I would put #1 and #3 as my preferred solutions to test first with #4 being a perk tied to Tactics as that would allow sending into battle half army of tier 5 units and half recruits and levelling the recruits really fast based on the tier 5 unit capabilities.

The wages in the game right now are just... wrong. Cavalry vs infantry being the same (aside from the quite small one time cost of a horse) and also the fact tier 5 units will serve under a level 1 completely unknown/zero social status person. Having to earn the chance to have tier 5 units via renown/clan level/influence and wage premiums would be more interesting and fully thematic.

 

[Sidrath]

Many thanks all for the feedback on this. Having now played around with every faction, it is painfully apparent to me that infantry leveling does indeed need a review, as the current dependency on doing damage cripples all infantry progression, especially those lacking a throwing weapon.

Infantry with throwing weapons actually seemed to level pretty quickly. The Battanian line that culminates in Wildlings is very effective - shielded and have throwables from as early as T2. I realise Sturgian Veteran Warriors have them too, and are considered superior - but they only get their throwables at T5. The difference, from the player perspective of leveling infantry, between pulling up Sturgian T2 Warriors into Sturgian T5 Veteran Warriors vs Battanian T2 Wood Runners into T5 Wildlings, is really noticeable.

All this to say: if my preferred option (#1: award exp for getting hit/blocking, not just for dealing damage) is challenging to code, a short-term band-aid for rendering infantry less burdensome to level would be to alter their gear loadouts for Throwing options early in the tree (as early as T2 or T3).

 

[adrakken]

All the game needs (there is a mod for it actually) is just some "training" fields to be put in...like in real life, troops can improved via training. No need to make drastic unrealistic changes because the only current way to learn is via battle.

 

[DD44]

I totally agree with this topic, and it may be conflating issues and/or overpromoting my pet peeve, but I feel the need to point out that having a functional spear/pike wall formation would also help address this a lot. If for no other reason because it would notably increase at least your polearm kills and XP.