Commanding an Army - AKA THE FUN PART

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Alric

Recruit
First off, hello everyone :cool:

Mount & Blade is the quite possibly the funnest game I have ever played (and I've been gaming since the original Monkey Island was released) so my opinion carries a lot of weight. Just kidding, of course. Let's move along shall we...

Today I made a concerted effort to actually create and command an effective (and eventually unstoppable) army in game. If you have not tried this before I STRONGLY RECOMMEND IT, as I think it far surpasses solo play.

Here are some suggestions for the whole army/group command feature that I hope get implemented :

* Give the player the ability to seperate his troops into Groups. Perhaps the level of your Leadership skill can detemine how many Groups you can create.

This would allow me to say, select groups using SHIFT+1, SHIFT+2, etc.., then give them individual orders.

It should be very easy using the current "personnel" movement screen (ie: capture, recruit screen) and would allow would-be commanders such as myself the chance to really micro-manage his forces, and ultimately be more successful on the battlefield.

I'm not sure exactly how big we're allowed to make our armies, but I think allowing people to place a max of 5 different units (Vaegir footman, manhunter, etc) and perhaps limit each groups size to a maximum of 20 men should be adequate.

* MORE ORDERS

More orders to use during battle such as..

Stop - Because you don't always want to run to the spot you want all your guy's to stand at, stopping them in their tracks might be more useful in many situations.

Ready Ranged - Orders your soldiers to equip their ranged weapon. Increase the number of troops that carry ranged weapons as they are the only real defence againt cavalry, and make them fire at the horses body more often than the rider. I love how easy they are to take out with a good lance charge, but I think it can be made more realistic by implementing the above.

Ready Melee - I believe it's obvious to all what issuing this command would accomplish.

Then we can get into a whole slew of formations (all centered on the player character) such as:

Wedge
Box
Line
etc..

This post is already too long, so if you'd like more suggestions relating to armies in Mount & Blade just let me know and I'll babble on some more.

PS FANTASTIC GAME
 
Another fairly simple suggestion would be to let the player command individual soldiers by pointing at them (as in, walking up to your soldier until his name appears in front of you) and then pressing the 'use' key ('f' by default). The orders menu could then pop into view, and you could select whatever order you want to give that particular soldier. The soldier would then follow his specific order, while the rest of the troops kept doing whatever they were doing before.

This way, you could tell your entire army to 'hold position', for example, then walk up to a handful of individual guys and tell them to 'follow'. This system would give you a bit more control over your units during a fight, while keeping the orders system still fairly simple and straightforward. Right?
 
franbeard said:
This way, you could tell your entire army to 'hold position', for example, then walk up to a handful of individual guys and tell them to 'follow'. This system would give you a bit more control over your units during a fight, while keeping the orders system still fairly simple and straightforward. Right?
I'd rather ride near my men and yell "Cavalry, Follow Me!".
Using shift+# like Alric mentioned to announce the group (maybe even allow me to name custom groups ^^) and then using the 1-5 to give them the order.

An advanced feature could be to have signal flags/horn calls to signal charges or retreats.

I would like the ability to designate a location for my troops to run to if I give the retreat order.
 
I like this idea, but I wouldn't want it to be neccessary. As I mentioned in some other threads, it's great to feel like one man amidst all the carnage of the battlefield. But if fighting a battle requires setting up all these different squads, and formations, it might make the game a little too similar to a strategy game. Sometimes I might like to directly order my troops here or there, but other times I love just riding into the fray and picking off strays with my lance.

Perhaps something simple like having a button that tells melee men where to hold their position, and another that tells ranged fighters where to hold their position. That way you cal set up your guys a little more strategically, but not make it into a difficult affair.

Again, the idea shouldn't be overlooked, but I wouldn't want a long prossess of strategy and planning to become neccesary to win a battle.
 
Would it be more efficient if we discuss this subject -at least commanding part- here? Just a suggestion...
 
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