Great balance.. you forgot to take in one thing

[DamienZharkoff]

Sieges are more of a pain in the ass then ever before. Crossbows murderhole your men, and half the time you get shot so far down the ladder, even a health cheat won't let you get up it to help the retarded special education AI get up there to actually do some fighting. Some castles are damn near literally impossible to take without a complete army of high tier units because of the fact the balance seems more suited for field combat then castle combat.

What I want to see this mod work on next, and its been said a million times, but now with units actually balanced, its needed more then ever...

Either A) The least likely of the two.. more alternative ways to siege a city/castle

or B) The most likely one... To fix siege scenes and add more ladders, and/maybe also, speed up the siege towers. Right now the field combat is excelent, but in my honest opinion, the sieges have now gotten worse, and almost never in a good way.

Yes I understand castle sieges are meant to be hard... but watching crossbowmen machine gun down, from the amount of them, your men because the AI are being nice and filed down like sheep to the slaughter up one ladder.. you gotta scream at the screen.

 

[Tri]

It's not the machinegun effect of too many archers that scares me, it is what happens when you don't quite make the first pass on a capital siege and end up fighting the last 150-200 special units, and only them. With Praven it got to the point where I would make an army of archers and just tell them to hold ground at the bottom of the ramp and charge solo because all that was left was Paladins Blademasters and Earls (60+ of each), doing anything else was just feeding elite halberdiers, etc. into a meat grinder.
When I got to the top of the ramp I'd just jump past them off the wall and body pull them down in small groups, most would stay up top facing my archers (Which is kinda like the siege tower glitch where you can jump out the castle and kill the first wave or two without them charging you en masse before the tower reaches the wall). Obviously not solely issues with this mod, but the way sieges can get with it makes the problems with the ai much more noticeable.
I have to agree that more ramps would be a beautiful thing in siege scenes, and it would make defense more than just a matter of select infantry and tell them to charge down a single ramp that they can't get on to thus forming an impenetrable clump (mmm elite halberdiers).

 

[The Mercenary]

Sieges are more of a pain in the ass then ever before. Crossbows murderhole your men, and half the time you get shot so far down the ladder, even a health cheat won't let you get up it to help the retarded special education AI get up there to actually do some fighting. Some castles are damn near literally impossible to take without a complete army of high tier units because of the fact the balance seems more suited for field combat then castle combat.

What I want to see this mod work on next, and its been said a million times, but now with units actually balanced, its needed more then ever...

Either A) The least likely of the two.. more alternative ways to siege a city/castle

or B) The most likely one... To fix siege scenes and add more ladders, and/maybe also, speed up the siege towers. Right now the field combat is excelent, but in my honest opinion, the sieges have now gotten worse, and almost never in a good way.

Yes I understand castle sieges are meant to be hard... but watching crossbowmen machine gun down, from the amount of them, your men because the AI are being nice and filed down like sheep to the slaughter up one ladder.. you gotta scream at the screen.

B is already being worked on.

 

[Chereokee]

What about Rams? Strange that such a basic siege weapon isn't featured in M&B. Engine limitation?

 

[Joker86]

I think this is the perfect moment for mentioning something "bigger", which I think still is missing to balance the game totally: infantry balancing. (I posted this somewhere before, but I can't find it any more...  )

Especially on sieges, but also on open fielded battles, you don't use infantry that much. In fact I don't, ad why should I? There are two ways to fight: with arrows or in melee. For the first one you use archers, and for the second one nothing is better than cavalry. Infantry actually has got no purpose. Why is that?

Because of the cavalry. Infantry and cavalry don't add to each other, cavalry is totally dominating. It's top-tier infantry with superior equipment on mighty horses. So you can either have a totally devastating force on the open field, or at least some heavily armored top tier infantry in sieges with only one troop slot (= not only more space but lesser wages, higher map speed and lower supply requirements compared to two troop types).

So what would I change?


Cavalry:

-High agility/strength
-High power strike
-High riding
-High (200-250+) weapon profeciences
-Low/no Ironflesh
-Low/no Shield
-Low/no Athletics

EITHER equipped with ONLY a two handed weapon OR ONLY shield and lance. Or, in case of the councilmen for example, only a lance/spear is good as well. Or give them 1-hd weapons but no shield.

You would either have an offensive cavalry branch (without shield) or a defensive one (with shield). "Offensive" and "defensive" are just sub-classifications here, cavalry has to be HIGHLY offensive, with very little defensive capabilities. And, most important: without horse they have to be near useless. Especially the "defensive" line, with only having their lances to stab enemies in meele.

You could use the offensive cavalry branch for dealing highest damage on open fielded battle, and also for having top tier infantry on sieges which can deal huge damage, but in both scenarios they would be highly vulnerable to archers. Yes, the armor is good, but low (best would be 0) ironflesh and no shield equate this very easily, and you will definetely lose a lot of knights, if you use them as infantry during sieges or don't hide them from the enemy archers on the open field.

On the other hand you could use cavalry with shields, but they are only armed with lances/spears. On sieges they would last a bit longer than the offensive cavalry, but with their lances they would be pretty useless in meele. On open fielded battles they have bigger chances to reach an archer line they attack from the front, but they will also suffer losses due to no ironflesh (or being dismounted, which is effectively like a loss). So better hide your cavalry until the right moment comes.


Infantry:

Infantry has to become the backbone of your army, and this is easily balanced if you make them as tough as leather! This means on the first place:

Shields for top tier infantry!

All the top tier infantry at the current game doesn't have shields! Varangian/King's Berserker, Einherjars, Champions, Blademaster, (Elite) Halberdiers, Sergeants and so on never or seldom own shields. So you don't use them, because compared to their wages and the effort to train them chances are too great they don't even reach the enemy.

Elite Swordfighters, Highlanders, Huskarls and so on do have shields, but they are not good enough to establish a bridgehead on the top of the ladder, or even to slaughter some dismounted knights. Even with a 200-Huskarl army with 90% shields I only see my men being knocked out or dieing at the top of the ladder, like flies, without harming a single enemy!!!  . If I upgrade the Huskarls to King's Berserkers the losses become even worse, but among all these orange and red messages sometimes a green one pops out... at least... 

So make infantry on first place incredibly tough, and on the second place let them deal a good amount of damage.

-High strength/agility
-High ironflesh
-High power strike
-High shield
-High athletics
-nothing meele-important low
-good (but not as good as the knight's) weapon profeciences

Good/best shields, good or even best weapons, good armour. (Not the best, this is reserved for the knights though)

Infantry would become enormously important:

- it would be the only troop type that can soak up enemy fire without heavy losses
- chances would be increased that an infantry block can stand a knight attack
- so you would be forced to send in your infantry next to your cavarly, because last one would be slaughtered after it has lost its attack momentum. Or you would have to send in your infantry first to break up enemy lines, and afterwards send your cavalry to clean up the rests. (= more realism)
- in sieges Infantry would become the only opportunity to reach the top of the walls

If you combine a block of 60% defensive top tier infantry, 20% old offensive infantry (Berserker, Champions etc.), and 20% spearmen (also with shields) your enemy would have something he can't make a dent in 


This wouldn't only solve the problem of unbalanced sieges, but would also increase standard battle behaviour.

 

[The Mercenary]

The reason high-tier infantry are shieldless is because their armour is meant to keep them alive long enough to reach the enemy, and their two-handed weapons are made for gutting enemies.

The reason mid-tier infantry are using shields is because they're the backbone of your army. At least, in my mind, no Lord can field an unlimited amount of the strongest soldiers available. They'll field them, but the bulk of their army is going to be of middling capability, with middling quality of weaponry and armour. I would truly love to force the player to use recruits:mid-tiers:high-tiers in a ratio of 1:5:2, but that ain't gonna happen. Anyway, that's also my solution to sieges. Pack a bunch of mid-tier swordsmen.

In other news, I'm going to be putting a troop patch out today. v. 582 will include Elite Huskarls, Hussars for the Vaegirs as a light cavalry type troop, a dedicated spear line for the Vaegirs, a dedicated spear line for the Swadians (it will NOT be as strong as the Vaegir spear line, which will not be as strong as the Rhodoks), and a few new Khergit troops.

 

[cadaverescu]

i think some scenes should be changed. For instance in a castle (khergit) the ladder is surrounded on 3 sides by archer walls. how idiot can anyone be in a real siege to put the ladder there and not on a corner where you have only limited frontal archers?
Sieges in general require a 5:1 ballance. Is in all the strategy books. So you want to win a siege with 1:2 balance like in the old game and with lower tier units? that i think is game braking.
I think if all the sieges should become harder by having a spawn code that spawns in sieges the top tier units before the lower tier, and modify the ladder to be pushed on the wall similar to the siege tower only faster.

 

[Joker86]

The reason high-tier infantry are shieldless is because their armour is meant to keep them alive long enough to reach the enemy, and their two-handed weapons are made for gutting enemies.
The reason mid-tier infantry are using shields is because they're the backbone of your army.

The problem is this doesn't work - high-tier infantry approaching archers without cover ALWAYS suffers great losses, regardless of the quality of their armour. It doesn't work. And every Halberdier or King's Berserker who dies is a real pain in the ass, because it takes so long training them.

On the other hand mid tier infantry has better defensive qualities (although I don't know any infantry troop type, not even Huskarls, of which I say "Gosh! These guys are really tough to kill!"), but their offensive capabilities are that weak, that they can't stand cavalry attacks or establish a foothold on the top of a wall. In other words: useless!

All my proposals of course were for high-tier cavalry and infantry. The mid- and low-tier area doesn't need these strict reglementations and role-arrangement.

This game need specialized units instead of allrounders. The best example are the Ivory Archers. Their proposal is ranged combat, and they are absolutely deadly in these matters. But noone would ever come to the idea of sending them into meele, even if they're the last troops you've got and they run out of arrows. You would withdraw from the fight before sending them into hand-to-hand fights. And my whish would be that the same thoughts would come up with unmounted knights. But if you nerf unmounted knights you would suffer a lack of good infantry (see the paradoxon?) that you can use in sieges. And so there has to be created capable infantry.

 

[Soil]

Addressing the issue of too hard castle sieges:

Wouldn't it be the most obivous option to lower the amount of soldiers in the garrison? After all, that's what fortifications were for, defensively beating a larger army...

 

[Mini Marine]

Here's the problem with the Ivory Archer/Knight analogy, when your archers run out of ammo, they are still archers, and you can order them to fall back to keep them safe, when a knight gets his horse shot out from under him, he become infantry, and you have no way of withdrawing him from combat

 

[Kazdum]

and please fix swardian cavalary, its broken. You can just spam them and win anything without strategy, they simply dont slow down after running over people.

In other news, I'm going to be putting a troop patch out today. v. 582 will include Elite Huskarls, Hussars for the Vaegirs as a light cavalry type troop, a dedicated spear line for the Vaegirs, a dedicated spear line for the Swadians (it will NOT be as strong as the Vaegir spear line, which will not be as strong as the Rhodoks), and a few new Khergit troops.

Seriously, swardian is already overpowered, now if you add counter against other horses (the other cavalary sucks compared to them) what it will be of the game? I did quit playing swardian because there is no fun even in full damage. All you need to do is spam nobles, have a noble army and level up them with Kelemvor.

I am ok with their cavalary beign strong, I just dont get it why they have such powerful archers as well, why they have such awesome infantry as well, why do they get pikeman now as well. Whats up with that?

 

[Morrowind Mod Man]

I am ok with their cavalary beign strong, I just dont get it why they have such powerful archers as well, why they have such awesome infantry as well, why do they get pikeman now as well. Whats up with that?

*canned laughter*

And what is the deal with airline food?

 

[Joker86]

Here's the problem with the Ivory Archer/Knight analogy, when your archers run out of ammo, they are still archers, and you can order them to fall back to keep them safe, when a knight gets his horse shot out from under him, he become infantry, and you have no way of withdrawing him from combat

Yeah of course. This was more ment in cases where you need some meele fighters on foot at the beginning of a battle, e.g. during sieges or fights in mountains (where you could let your cavalry dismount).

Atm you have your cavalry on first place in your party screen, never mind what situation occurs: open fields, sieges, mountains, infested/plundered villages, they do always fine, never mind if mounted or not.

I want cavalry changed in a way that causes the player to rearrange the party before entering fights in horse-unfriendly terrain. Of course you could send in your cavalry on foot, but I want this becomming as stupid as using your Ivory Archers for the same purpose. And to force the player to do that it must bleed in his heart doing this, as much as Ivory Archers in meele do, which means: let them suffer heavy losses! Currently the contrary is the case: you will probably have fewer losses with knights than with any top-tier infantry type, even Einherjars and Elite Halberdiers.

(Acutally sending the knights back when dismounted would be very handy, but it's as impossible as
...sending your Arbalestiers in meele (e.g. against the last few enemy archers left on field) but keeping your Rangers shooting
...placing your Huskarls with their shields in first line in front of the vulnerable Berserkers
...letting your horse archers run around the enemy while your lancers attack him directly in meele

And so on and so on... *sigh*)

 

[Mini Marine]

yes it would certainly be nice to have control of light/heavy/pike infantry archers/xbows and Heavy cav/lite cav/archer cav seperated out instead of being all clumped together

 

[The Mercenary]

and please fix swardian cavalary, its broken. You can just spam them and win anything without strategy, they simply dont slow down after running over people.

In other news, I'm going to be putting a troop patch out today. v. 582 will include Elite Huskarls, Hussars for the Vaegirs as a light cavalry type troop, a dedicated spear line for the Vaegirs, a dedicated spear line for the Swadians (it will NOT be as strong as the Vaegir spear line, which will not be as strong as the Rhodoks), and a few new Khergit troops.

Seriously, swardian is already overpowered, now if you add counter against other horses (the other cavalary sucks compared to them) what it will be of the game? I did quit playing swardian because there is no fun even in full damage. All you need to do is spam nobles, have a noble army and level up them with Kelemvor.

I am ok with their cavalary beign strong, I just dont get it why they have such powerful archers as well, why they have such awesome infantry as well, why do they get pikeman now as well. Whats up with that?

Here's a tip: Don't spam cavalry.

 

[BumpInTheNight]

I have to agree that the swadian Cavalier is the pinnacle unit and I don't need any other for any purpose apart from hundreds of recruits to trick the AI into thinking my lands are protected by Xerxes's army itself.  A big bank roll provided by looting mercs and the patience to passive level them with my NPCs' training skills/go on bandit herding runs.  If they were say equipped with purely lances, weapons really good while on a horse but terrible for ground troops it'd make them at least not the single jack of all trades and master of them.  It'd make me at least use some other unit as my bulk siegers and reserve them for open field warfare.

As it stands I do appreciate the tendency of Rhodok spearmen effortlessly dismounting them but all that tends to do is once the Cav gets up he educates the offending spearman and his whole crew about the perils of messing with his ride.

 

[DamienZharkoff]

Xerxes army WAS 10K recruits. %They were simple tribesmen. Hate to break it to you.

But yes, Cav's do need to be nerfed as a peasent unit.

 

[BumpInTheNight]

Xerxes army WAS 10K recruits. %They were simple tribesmen. Hate to break it to you.

But yes, Cav's do need to be nerfed as a peasent unit.

Well that was the analogy I was going for, complete with the Immortal legion (my party of Cavs) that delt with the rare opponents that actually took the time to fight back rather then run away from the sheer numbers of otherwise useless troops. 

 

[The Mercenary]

Xerxes army WAS 10K recruits. %They were simple tribesmen. Hate to break it to you.

But yes, Cav's do need to be nerfed as a peasent unit.

They're not peasant units though.

 

[DamienZharkoff]

Xerxes army WAS 10K recruits. %They were simple tribesmen. Hate to break it to you.

But yes, Cav's do need to be nerfed as a peasent unit.

They're not peasant units though.

They would be basically unmounted khergit tribesmen in this case. They had banana wood bows I believe (Or some other soft wood) and same make flimsy arrows that couldn't pierce armor on a good day. The Immortals btw were just men wearing cloth hoods and leather armor with actual metal weapons (A suprise for that bunch) that were purely psychological. They, like the others, were slaughtered because of lack of armor, experience, and training.

All in all they were an army of recruits at best. The immortals were no more then tier 1-tier 2 soldiers.