Lord Silvabane
Sergeant
I have everything on max difficulty apart from "damage to player", it's set at 1/4.
Difficulty isnt everything
- Thread starter Donkerman
- Start date
Users who are viewing this thread
Sergeant
And I forgot to mention the most obvious option, kill the horse. A lancer without a horse will take two hours trying to tickle you to death with his lance.Horrux said:
bakters
Knight
Strangely enough, I read this thread. It echoes my thoughts on game difficulty, and why I do not think that whatever percentage the game tell's you you play on is necessarily very close to actual difficulty of the game itself.
This game is difficult when you don't *know* what you can do, and what you can't do. Once you know it, it becomes easy, even if your abilities as a player aren't all that great. Once you can take a look at the opposing party, siege situation, village raid or whatever and just *know* what are your chances of winning, the actual difficulty of the game does not matter any more. You either go for it or run away, and wait for a better chance. If you have to run away often, your game will simply take longer, but that's it. No extra difficulty.
Similarly, once you figure out how to avoid getting hit damage to player stops making any difference. You can win the same battle almost just as easily half naked and wounded as with full health, beastly armor and on 1/4 damage. For me personally damage to player never made much difference, so it is the first thing I max out when learning new mod or whatever. Even in tournaments it doesn't matter if you are one-shotted or two-shotted all that much. Don't believe me? Try a hard (for your character) tournament on full or 1/4. If you are like me, you will have almost just as difficult a time both ways.
How about Battle Sizer? Why 150 is more difficult than 50? With Battle Size at 200 I can take my full top level army against mid-levelish enemies and crush them. At 50 my top level units will have to face their top level units, and will probably get killed sometimes... How about siege attack, when their units fall off walls while I can spread mine in such a way, that all of my archers can shoot at once, while they can't breathe?
What made my games significantly more difficult was trying to go faster. If you are racing against the clock, you tend to take risks. I absolutely enjoyed this challenge. Unfortunately, I got sick of various bugs I discovered while playing fast, so I gave up. But it was fun.
This game is difficult when you don't *know* what you can do, and what you can't do. Once you know it, it becomes easy, even if your abilities as a player aren't all that great. Once you can take a look at the opposing party, siege situation, village raid or whatever and just *know* what are your chances of winning, the actual difficulty of the game does not matter any more. You either go for it or run away, and wait for a better chance. If you have to run away often, your game will simply take longer, but that's it. No extra difficulty.
Similarly, once you figure out how to avoid getting hit damage to player stops making any difference. You can win the same battle almost just as easily half naked and wounded as with full health, beastly armor and on 1/4 damage. For me personally damage to player never made much difference, so it is the first thing I max out when learning new mod or whatever. Even in tournaments it doesn't matter if you are one-shotted or two-shotted all that much. Don't believe me? Try a hard (for your character) tournament on full or 1/4. If you are like me, you will have almost just as difficult a time both ways.
How about Battle Sizer? Why 150 is more difficult than 50? With Battle Size at 200 I can take my full top level army against mid-levelish enemies and crush them. At 50 my top level units will have to face their top level units, and will probably get killed sometimes... How about siege attack, when their units fall off walls while I can spread mine in such a way, that all of my archers can shoot at once, while they can't breathe?
What made my games significantly more difficult was trying to go faster. If you are racing against the clock, you tend to take risks. I absolutely enjoyed this challenge. Unfortunately, I got sick of various bugs I discovered while playing fast, so I gave up. But it was fun.
deutrino
Regular
bakters said:
I absolutely agree. That is way I preffer to play on higher difficulty settings. This game has some strategic elements, that most players never care to discover. As long as rush-hack-and-slash tactic works why should they?
However as soon as you get crushed several times in a row, you start to pay attention (what is the layout on this specific castle, where is the lord that owns it, for how long the other kingdoms are at war with eachother, in what order your troops will enter the battlefield, are your surgeon or engineer with you, and countless other little things...)
That is how you learn when to fight and when to run. Not to mention field tactics, where timing is EVERYTHING, when givng orders. You could use the very best tactic and still lose the fight if don't give your commnds on time.
And exactly because it is harder, you are forced to pay attention. The more attention you pay, more subtle things you learn, and it becomes more fun to play.
bakters
Knight
You've made an excellent point with emphasizing timing in tactics. I totally agree. Especially in sieges, but in field battles it also is very important.
But regarding learning process, I'd say that it depends. It's much easier to learn what works and what doesn't if you can afford to experiment. If you can't, you will tend to play safely, which means that you may never perfect this one crazy strategy which allows you to dominate the game. I could do that in Warband. I've won practically alone (three lords, who didn't do anything anyway) and I was able to conquer a kingdom within a week or two singlehandedly on maxed difficulty. Now I'm learning With Fire and Sword, and it's much harder. I use various tweaks and one cheat to make this game easier to learn. I'll probably turn them all off next time around, but for now it's hard enough the way I play it (partly because I don't trade or loot, but whatever).
So my approach is to start easier and increase the difficulty as your skill progresses. I can't see how you could develop hyper-aggressive strategy otherwise, and that's what I think is the most effective way to play M&B games.
But regarding learning process, I'd say that it depends. It's much easier to learn what works and what doesn't if you can afford to experiment. If you can't, you will tend to play safely, which means that you may never perfect this one crazy strategy which allows you to dominate the game. I could do that in Warband. I've won practically alone (three lords, who didn't do anything anyway) and I was able to conquer a kingdom within a week or two singlehandedly on maxed difficulty. Now I'm learning With Fire and Sword, and it's much harder. I use various tweaks and one cheat to make this game easier to learn. I'll probably turn them all off next time around, but for now it's hard enough the way I play it (partly because I don't trade or loot, but whatever).
So my approach is to start easier and increase the difficulty as your skill progresses. I can't see how you could develop hyper-aggressive strategy otherwise, and that's what I think is the most effective way to play M&B games.
bakters said:
I agree with you for the most part on the battle sizer, it really makes little to no difference what it is set on, the only time I truly see a difference is when I am so outnumbered that I only get 4-5 troops vs their hundred. Smaller battle size I would only be facing half as many sure, but my 4-5 troops gets cut to 1-2. I would rather face a hundred with a half dozen by my side than 50 with two companions picking daisies.
However on the damage to player I notice a huge difference. The mod I used to play was sort of tilted towards the extreme in terms of damage (even with armors that would make you a god in native you still went down in 2-3 hits) in native I notice a huge difference between say 1/4 and full damage. Full damage in my current gear on my current level in my current playthrough a rhodok sharpie will drop me in 2-3 hits, a huscarl in 2-3 swings. However if I drop that down to 1/4 rather than full I can sit there naked and tank them all day long. Honestly the damage goes from hits of 20-30 despite my armor from the huscarls axe to him hitting my flesh for a whopping 5 points.
bakters
Knight
Sure, I do agree that at 1/4 damage you can take much more hits before you go down, but how much it changes the outcomes of battles from mid-game forward? I'd say that not much at all, but maybe because of my playstyle? I pretty much always played unshielded horse-archer with a bastard sword, so while I could deal a lot of damage, I couldn't tank even at 1/4 damage. If I was swarmed, I either cut myself out immediately or I went down. AI hits through each other, so you get constantly interrupted and you will go down a bit later on 1/4 damage, but that's it. Not much of a difference, on native at least. Mods can be different, of course. I know, because now I play wFaS, where any random shot can insta-kill you on full damage despite decent armor.
bakters said:
It changes the outcome of the battle hugely, because once you get knocked out, the battle goes on autocalc. If you take less damage than normal, you will stay up much longer and the outcome is greatly influenced. At my 159% difficulty, I mostly keep to the side, and dive in when I can get an easy kill. Not as much XP, not as much fun, but more REAL.
bakters
Knight
I don't agree, and I don't even play with battle continuation on. (I play on max difficulty in Warband and on full damage in wFaS, though not maxed everything - just to put things in perspective).
Sure, once in a while you get one-shotted, but with decent First Aid you are back for another round. If you get one-shotted twice in a row, you did something wrong, but decent First Aid will still keep you up for another go. And if things go really unlucky, I just reload and try again. I don't count it as cheating, not in a game where you have invisible spawn-points, invisible walls at the end of the map and all that.
Anyway, how much DPS you'd have to deal to make a real difference with high Battle Size? You just can't kill fast enough to make up for inferior troops. Sure, I can kill 50-ish high level troops in a field battle myself, but it will take a long time. By this time my own troops are either dead or routed already, and no matter how much damage I can take, I'm dead if they kill my horse.
BTW - with high Battle Size you can do one successful charge at weak opponents, and they will all route. With lower Battle Size you have to route every reinforcement wave separately, your troops will get spread all over the map chasing original spawn, but newly spawned enemies will all start in a tight group, which gives them local force superiority. Even worse in wFaS, where they spawn with a loaded gun and a ready pike.
Campaign AI is pretty much everything when it comes to real difficulty changes. All the rest is much less important, and whatever percentage you end up with is the least important of it all.
Sure, once in a while you get one-shotted, but with decent First Aid you are back for another round. If you get one-shotted twice in a row, you did something wrong, but decent First Aid will still keep you up for another go. And if things go really unlucky, I just reload and try again. I don't count it as cheating, not in a game where you have invisible spawn-points, invisible walls at the end of the map and all that.
Anyway, how much DPS you'd have to deal to make a real difference with high Battle Size? You just can't kill fast enough to make up for inferior troops. Sure, I can kill 50-ish high level troops in a field battle myself, but it will take a long time. By this time my own troops are either dead or routed already, and no matter how much damage I can take, I'm dead if they kill my horse.
BTW - with high Battle Size you can do one successful charge at weak opponents, and they will all route. With lower Battle Size you have to route every reinforcement wave separately, your troops will get spread all over the map chasing original spawn, but newly spawned enemies will all start in a tight group, which gives them local force superiority. Even worse in wFaS, where they spawn with a loaded gun and a ready pike.
Campaign AI is pretty much everything when it comes to real difficulty changes. All the rest is much less important, and whatever percentage you end up with is the least important of it all.
bakters
Knight
True. Also Tactics skill works as intended, but all in all, I don't think that it makes much of a difference. You either can do it, or you can't, and those several extra troops you end up with due to higher sustainable renown are not gonna change much. I use those slots for freed prisoners, which get immediately dumped into a garrison.
Anyway, I chimed in again mostly to brag. I took on 82 Winged Hussar deserters with a mighty force of 16. My troops went down in less then a minute, of course, so I had to do all the killing myself, and I won. Campaign AI is set to something easy, and Combat AI is in the middle (I think), but the rest is maxed. (I'm not sure if lower Combat AI even helps. I think I'd prefer if enemies would throw faints while they were swarming me instead of spamming attacks, but I don't have it maxed.) I survived two "glancing blows" due to being stuck on the edge of the map.
Man, how I hate those invisible walls! But I won anyway.
Anyway, I chimed in again mostly to brag. I took on 82 Winged Hussar deserters with a mighty force of 16. My troops went down in less then a minute, of course, so I had to do all the killing myself, and I won. Campaign AI is set to something easy, and Combat AI is in the middle (I think), but the rest is maxed. (I'm not sure if lower Combat AI even helps. I think I'd prefer if enemies would throw faints while they were swarming me instead of spamming attacks, but I don't have it maxed.) I survived two "glancing blows" due to being stuck on the edge of the map.
Man, how I hate those invisible walls! But I won anyway.
bakters said:
bakters said:
You seem to have answered yourself. True it is different for you and me because you don't use battle continuation and I do however the way I see it every troop you yourself kills is one troop that cannot kill or distract one of yours. So having the damage turned way down allows you to kill far more of the enemy troops.
Also your troops only get spread out if you let them, if you use the commands to bring them back to you between waves (in other words letting the routers go) assuming that you didn't march all the way across the map to meet the enemy you can have a second, even third charge as a unified group.
With all that said I finally upped combat speed. I somehow always over looked that when toying with difficulty. I moved it from normal to fastest and holy crap! While I don't notice a lot of difference between the speeds when dealing with normal troops last time I ran into Ragnar he was swinging that two hander around like it was a butter knife!
bakters
Knight
In Warband I use Battle Continuation, but not in wFaS, because it clashes with the mod I'm using. Anyway, in this battle my troops killed maybe 5 enemies (and I doubt even that). I took all of them down, but it took a long time. So you can win a round alone *slowly*.annallia said:
The biggest difference for me is if I get stuck or lose my horse, I can take a solid hit or two before I go down. It can make a difference, of course, but not a big one. The amount of damage I'm dealing is the same no matter if I take full damage or a 1/4, so I kill at the same rate.
Sure, I tried many ways, but I decided that it's better to not micromanage too much. My reasoning is as follows.
0. You will lose some troops during regrouping stage. It's almost inevitable, no matter what.
1. If I leave my healers across the map from the whole battle, they will stay alive.
2. Routed troops will meet you next round, so it's good to kill them, if you can.
3. I can personally kill a lot of newly spawned enemies if they bunch up nicely around a lonely attacker of mine. Others will spread out chasing us around, so my cavalry can take cheap shots at them.
4. If you regroup, your troops will create a bigger target. Even lousy marksmen are bound to hit something. It's better if they are constantly on the move and spread out.
You will adjust very quickly, and be just as successful as before. Wanna bet?With all that said I finally upped combat speed. I somehow always over looked that when toying with difficulty. I moved it from normal to fastest and holy crap! While I don't notice a lot of difference between the speeds when dealing with normal troops last time I ran into Ragnar he was swinging that two hander around like it was a butter knife!
bakters said:
Any way you cut it, the longer you are alive the more overall damage you are doing. If for some god awful reason you are dying just as quickly in 1/4 damage as you do in full you have to be playing a mod, using a completely goofball build beyond my comprehension, or some other thing I cannot think of. So really, unless you do what I do sometimes late game (sit where you spawn and go afk while your troops do the killing) you being alive longer makes a difference, even if you are not actually killing you are a magnet for the AI so you are detracting enemy troops and exposing their backsides to yours or at the very least keeping them from turning and ganging up on your troops.
bakters said:
0. You will lose a few troops no matter what. What you need to ask yourself is are you going to lose more troops in the way of stragglers getting back to the line or from your limited troops nearby attacking the mob headed your way.
1. I do the same thing, which is why I call my troops back individually, sure its a few extra key strokes but it really takes no time at all.
2. I have never heard of this, at least not in Warband, maybe it happens in WF&S (I only played it for a few weeks after it first came out) but in Warband I am almost certain this does not happen. If I run into a lord party with 150 troops and at the end of the first round I see 75 killed 25 routed I know not to expect more than 50 in the next round.
3. Again your low damage setting is what is allowing you to do this so easily which is how you are making a severe difference.
4. Most factions top teir troops carry shields (unless you are running an all archer army). There are a few exceptions and what you say is true however again it goes back to what I said in 0.
Already adjusted, like I said very little difference with normal troops. Lords on the other hand have become a unit that I prioritize not because it makes me giggle when I make sure the king/lord is the first one down in the battle (old habit from total war games of gunning for generals). Now I do it because I know they can really do some damage.bakters said:You will adjust very quickly, and be just as successful as before. Wanna bet?
Aside from that the only true difference I have seen is in the top tier troops. Low to mid tier still go down quick and dont swing fast enough to cause trouble, top tier though cause me to take them a little more seriously.
bakters
Knight
I didn't try to say, that damage to the player doesn't matter at all, just that it doesn't matter very much, especially from midgame forward. Early game it does matter quite a bit, because even a Looter can one-shot a horse, but as the size of your army increases it becomes less and less important (as long as you know how to avoid getting hit).
From mid-game up you don't have to engage in melee at all, especially if you increase Battle Size and stop getting storming the keep stages in sieges. Those are the only parts where I get knocked out with any sort of regularity in my late games. And while of course it's easier to fight mobs on 1/4 damage, quite often you will go down anyway, because every hit is an interrupt, and if you get constantly interrupted, you will go down eventually.
Regarding tactics.
Generally I do not let my troops mindlessly charge forward. Depending on the enemy, terrain and odds, I may do quite a bit of *initial* micromanagement, I just tend to avoid it later on. I found out, that losing a couple of units to a spawn trap is preferable to losing a couple of units during a regrouping stage, because I can take an advantage of the former, and I can't take much advantage of the later.
Basically I will circle their spawn point and shoot at their backs, while my lone trooper tanks it out in the middle. It can work quite well. Believe you me, I've won some crazy battles this way.
I'm quite convinced that you face routed troops during next round in Native. Sometimes you even face a lone survivor, though I can imagine I was wrong about that.
I play on full damage in WF&S. I do the killing mostly with my bow.
Shields don't help much, if your troops expose their backs toward the enemy, and they tend to do just that.
Regarding Combat Speed - as with many other options, it affects early game most severely and the late game pretty much not at all.
From mid-game up you don't have to engage in melee at all, especially if you increase Battle Size and stop getting storming the keep stages in sieges. Those are the only parts where I get knocked out with any sort of regularity in my late games. And while of course it's easier to fight mobs on 1/4 damage, quite often you will go down anyway, because every hit is an interrupt, and if you get constantly interrupted, you will go down eventually.
Regarding tactics.
Generally I do not let my troops mindlessly charge forward. Depending on the enemy, terrain and odds, I may do quite a bit of *initial* micromanagement, I just tend to avoid it later on. I found out, that losing a couple of units to a spawn trap is preferable to losing a couple of units during a regrouping stage, because I can take an advantage of the former, and I can't take much advantage of the later.
Basically I will circle their spawn point and shoot at their backs, while my lone trooper tanks it out in the middle. It can work quite well. Believe you me, I've won some crazy battles this way.
I'm quite convinced that you face routed troops during next round in Native. Sometimes you even face a lone survivor, though I can imagine I was wrong about that.
I play on full damage in WF&S. I do the killing mostly with my bow.
Shields don't help much, if your troops expose their backs toward the enemy, and they tend to do just that.
Regarding Combat Speed - as with many other options, it affects early game most severely and the late game pretty much not at all.
I just re-confirmed for myself that you do not face routed troops next round. I came across Ragnar again and decided to check.
Before the battle started he had 230 men in his party. First round we killed 86, wounded 22, and routed 34 second round we killed 67 wounded 9 and routed 12 and that was the end of the battle (yay he is now rotting in Praven).
86+22+34+67+9+12 = 230. If routed troops came back in the next round to fight we would have had more troops to deal with.
As to combat speed I do notice a difference, just the difficulty isn't there (even early game) unless dealing with a lord. The difference that I notice with low to mid tier troops is that before I could run in with my heavy saber and slash 4 necks before one of them got a swing off, now I can only do 2.
Before the battle started he had 230 men in his party. First round we killed 86, wounded 22, and routed 34 second round we killed 67 wounded 9 and routed 12 and that was the end of the battle (yay he is now rotting in Praven).
86+22+34+67+9+12 = 230. If routed troops came back in the next round to fight we would have had more troops to deal with.
As to combat speed I do notice a difference, just the difficulty isn't there (even early game) unless dealing with a lord. The difference that I notice with low to mid tier troops is that before I could run in with my heavy saber and slash 4 necks before one of them got a swing off, now I can only do 2.
Tripida
Squire
If the enemies routed when they were retreating(Avoiding death after pretty fast one-sided slaughter of his allies), then you will face them next round.bakters said:
Howewer, if their morale was so low, that they were fleeing(Reached low morale making them run from battle, not fighting no matter what) you won't have to fight them.
