Horse Charges and Collision.

[MountAndMemeButterlord]

Again, what do you think it most likely ACTUALLY looked like since "pushed back" is not to be taken literally?

French attacks at the battle of Golden Spurs? If modern authors are to be trusted then French heavy cavalry have attacked frontally through some bad terrain for cavalry, crisscrossed by creeks and marshland and got repulsed by determined Flemish line that had it's flanks protected and was armed with pikes and polearms. French may have tried couple of times and then on the retreat got chased back in to the marshes and cut down.

As for what "pushing back" can mean in such context, it can simply mean that Flemish center gave way and may have slowly backtracked under pressure of attacks. But again, I would like to see a source of this claim to be sure that it's not just author's imagination. I saw too many wild claims been made about too many battles without there been backing in the actual sources. Battle of Agincourt is a good example of such "creativity".

Well I have found trouble getting at the original historical sources without spending money but, I have found a few books by historians on the battle and all of them treat it as a given that the Flemish center gave way. For example one of the most recent and comprehensive (according to reviews) books on the battle, https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Golden-Spurs-Courtrai-July/dp/0851158889 focuses entire chapters on how the terrain at the time could explain WHY the Flemish center gave way.

 

[hruza]

For example one of the most recent and comprehensive (according to reviews) books on the battle, https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Golden-Spurs-Courtrai-July/dp/0851158889 focuses entire chapters on how the terrain at the time could explain WHY the Flemish center gave way.

From that link:
"Verbruggen's study is prefaced by discussion of the problems of reconstruction and extensive consideration of the sources, showing the difficulties faced by medieval military historians in attempts to interpret them. He then offers his own account of the events of that dramatic day, a case study in the reconstruction of events in one of the greatest battles of the middle ages."

 

[MountAndMemeButterlord]

For example one of the most recent and comprehensive (according to reviews) books on the battle, https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Golden-Spurs-Courtrai-July/dp/0851158889 focuses entire chapters on how the terrain at the time could explain WHY the Flemish center gave way.

From that link:
"Verbruggen's study is prefaced by discussion of the problems of reconstruction and extensive consideration of the sources, showing the difficulties faced by medieval military historians in attempts to interpret them. He then offers his own account of the events of that dramatic day, a case study in the reconstruction of events in one of the greatest battles of the middle ages."

Well yeah... That's what history is. None of us were there.

 

[Honved]

I've read accounts of other cavalry actions where the knights broke through the center, in one instance turning around and breaking through again from behind.  "Pushing back" may be a figure of speech, or it may actually involve the troops in the center giving ground as needed in order to maintain or restore a cohesive line, but not actually breaking.  We simply don't know enough about the tactics of the time, or the courses of the individual battles, to venture more than an "edjumacated guess".  Many or most of the authors apparently took it for granted that such tactics were understood by the reader, so any description of the events without that knowledge is inherently incomplete, if not incomprehensible.

Picture a modern description of an air combat, and how it would read to someone who doesn't know anything beyond the basics of flight control, the different types of guidance systems of air-to-air missiles, bullet trajectories, G-forces, or the constraints and effects that these have on maneuver and combat.

 

[MountAndMemeButterlord]

I've read accounts of other cavalry actions where the knights broke through the center, in one instance turning around and breaking through again from behind.  "Pushing back" may be a figure of speech, or it may actually involve the troops in the center giving ground as needed in order to maintain or restore a cohesive line, but not actually breaking.  We simply don't know enough about the tactics of the time, or the courses of the individual battles, to venture more than an "edjumacated guess".  Many or most of the authors apparently took it for granted that such tactics were understood by the reader, so any description of the events without that knowledge is inherently incomplete, if not incomprehensible.

Picture a modern description of an air combat, and how it would read to someone who doesn't know anything beyond the basics of flight control, the different types of guidance systems of air-to-air missiles, bullet trajectories, G-forces, or the constraints and effects that these have on maneuver and combat.

Definitely. experimental archaeology has helped, but without all the right variables can also lead to misinterpretations. I find it strange that hruza has this hard of a time believing that the Flemish line was pushed back even as a figure of speech . After re-reading and thinking about it I think it most likely referred to either a rout or ground given, there is my ejumacated guess, I always enjoy doing some personal research into these things and having an opinion.

Now to try to bring it back to Bannerlord... I think that something could be said for increasing how maneuverable horses are, I don't mind as much that you stay on your horse after a solid impact or that you suddenly drop to 2 mph as much as I mind how hard it is to turn and break combat, lack of maneuverability often makes slogging straight through the front of the enemy line faster. If horses had even a little bit of lateral movement it would make hit and run and other cavalry tactics far more viable.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I think instead of risking making cavalry even more overpowered, it would be a lot better to provide the possibility of cavalry completely routing a formation. In warband you have to just plough through the enemy and kill them all, whereas you could get a lot more interesting gameplay by turning horse bump damage into morale damage for all nearby troops, and in turn make it much less feasible for horses to just roll over any infantry.

 

[MountAndMemeButterlord]

I think instead of risking making cavalry even more overpowered, it would be a lot better to provide the possibility of cavalry completely routing a formation. In warband you have to just plough through the enemy and kill them all, whereas you could get a lot more interesting gameplay by turning horse bump damage into morale damage for all nearby troops, and in turn make it much less feasible for horses to just roll over any infantry.

All the best mods for Warband have a morale system, has this been confirmed for Bannerlord?
Would the cavalry lose morale as well? That would probably make hit and run tactics the most viable.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

There was a morale system in warband but like a lot of mechanics it's completely bugged and only works in specific circumstances. Most people have never seen a mass rout in native warband even though the code is supposed to make that happen.

 

[MountAndMemeButterlord]

There was a morale system in warband but like a lot of mechanics it's completely bugged and only works in specific circumstances. Most people have never seen a mass rout in native warband even though the code is supposed to make that happen.

Oh yeah I guess there was, it must not have been very complicated though I only remember the last 2 or 3 enemies in a battle ever routing.
I can't wait to see what they can pull off in Bannerlord (or updates or mods), it can't be easy calculating when large numbers of people would break and run in fear.

 

[hruza]

I find it strange that hruza has this hard of a time believing that the Flemish line was pushed back even as a figure of speech

I don't have a hard time, I am simply saying that I did not see any reference to it in the actual historical sources. I also newer said that lines did not get pushed around in battles, they of course were. It was very common for forces to change position during combat, usually by side that was or felt been on the disadvantage to move back slowly under pressure of attacks. In some instanced it was even part of the battle plan, as at battle of Chareonea where Philip ordered one wing of his army to slowly move back during battle and used gap that have been opened in the battle line as a result to move his cavalry behind the back of the opposing Greek force.
Another example is battle of Canae where Hannibal ordered his center to slowly give way under Roman pressure only to have Romans encircled by his flanks.

What I object to is notion that this should had somehow involved "pushing" somebody physically around, been it by cavalry or not. You can push somebody around only if you don't have to worry about him stabbing you in to the neck while you're doing so.

There was a morale system in warband but like a lot of mechanics it's completely bugged and only works in specific circumstances. Most people have never seen a mass rout in native warband even though the code is supposed to make that happen.

I don't think it was bugged, I think it was deliberately tuned down. It took extreme circumstances for enemy morale to drop enough to cause individual AI to start fleeing.

It was also very binary in nature, AI either was above threshold or under. There was no behavior in between.

With the introduction of the formations, it opens some possibilities to simulate morale on the formation level. It would be for example nice to see formation refuse to advance or even retreat slowly back if enough damage was done to it.

Unfortunately combat in MB is kind of arcadish and focused on individual combat and doesn't really match well with more realistic morale model. It's about hacking and slashing and I can imagine players to start complain if they can't hack through entire enemy formations because AI will start retreating after getting few soldiers killed. Which is why I think morale was tuned down in the MB in the first place.

I for one would love to see more elaborate AI and less arcade like combat.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I don't think it was bugged, I think it was deliberately tuned down. It took extreme circumstances for enemy morale to drop enough to cause individual AI to start fleeing.

There was a morale system in warband but like a lot of mechanics it's completely bugged and only works in specific circumstances. Most people have never seen a mass rout in native warband even though the code is supposed to make that happen.

Oh yeah I guess there was, it must not have been very complicated though I only remember the last 2 or 3 enemies in a battle ever routing.

It was actually quite complicated but it just didn't work because whoever coded it never tested it. There was a script which kept increasing the morale of troops infinitely so they would have millions of morale points just by standing still. It would only work if there were only a handful of enemies, because the script caused nearby allies to contribute an amount of morale every second. It was also an extremely inefficient script and caused large battles to freeze up but that's another story. Read more here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=320256.0

 

[Honved]

Morale should apply to both infantry charged by cavalry and to the cavalry making the charge.  It normally took time for a cavalry force to regroup and reorganize for a second attack.  If a small morale hit were to be applied to all units within a certain radius of the impact, infantry lines with poor morale would be inclined to suffer desertions and possible routing, and cavalry actions would tend to be the "win big, or go home" gambles that they often came down to.  Even more importantly, routing troops should cause a small morale hit to adjacent troops of their own side, so once the first men start to drop out of formation, the rest should get increasingly shaky.  Historically, once a rout started, it became "devil take the hindmost", so you didn't want to be the last to run.  Practically no battles resulted in near-annihilation of one side or the other (although there are a couple of rare exceptions), as USUALLY happens in the game, because one side generally realized it was losing and ran away, and many or most managed to escape.

As it now stands, individuals sometimes rout when they're wounded, but you rarely see an entire formation fall back or break off on account of morale until/unless they've ALL taken wounds.  Even at the very tail end of a battle, while 3-4 wounded troops are running away and there are only 3-4 healthy troops left, generally those healthy troops will still continue to fight against overwhelming odds.

 

[MountAndMemeButterlord]

I find it strange that hruza has this hard of a time believing that the Flemish line was pushed back even as a figure of speech

I don't have a hard time, I am simply saying that I did not see any reference to it in the actual historical sources. I also newer said that lines did not get pushed around in battles, they of course were. It was very common for forces to change position during combat, usually by side that was or felt been on the disadvantage to move back slowly under pressure of attacks. In some instanced it was even part of the battle plan, as at battle of Chareonea where Philip ordered one wing of his army to slowly move back during battle and used gap that have been opened in the battle line as a result to move his cavalry behind the back of the opposing Greek force.
Another example is battle of Canae where Hannibal ordered his center to slowly give way under Roman pressure only to have Romans encircled by his flanks.

What I object to is notion that this should had somehow involved "pushing" somebody physically around, been it by cavalry or not. You can push somebody around only if you don't have to worry about him stabbing you in to the neck while you're doing so.

There was a morale system in warband but like a lot of mechanics it's completely bugged and only works in specific circumstances. Most people have never seen a mass rout in native warband even though the code is supposed to make that happen.

I don't think it was bugged, I think it was deliberately tuned down. It took extreme circumstances for enemy morale to drop enough to cause individual AI to start fleeing.

It was also very binary in nature, AI either was above threshold or under. There was no behavior in between.

With the introduction of the formations, it opens some possibilities to simulate morale on the formation level. It would be for example nice to see formation refuse to advance or even retreat slowly back if enough damage was done to it.

Unfortunately combat in MB is kind of arcadish and focused on individual combat and doesn't really match well with more realistic morale model. It's about hacking and slashing and I can imagine players to start complain if they can't hack through entire enemy formations because AI will start retreating after getting few soldiers killed. Which is why I think morale was tuned down in the MB in the first place.

I for one would love to see more elaborate AI and less arcade like combat.

My bad I was confused by what exactly you were objecting to, you are correct I haven't actually seen the source that says this, but with so many historians referencing it I think that they are likely using an original source that I just can't find on the free internet.

The decision to lean more towards game play as opposed to realism is probably something they go over a lot, I agree and would love it if they went more for realism. I think that many if not most fans of the series have an interest in history, and there are arguably no other first/third person games that try to capture historical settings the way M&B does. They might have the idea that it is better to lean towards arcadish knowing that realism mods will let people that want realism tweak it without excluding people who just wanted a cool hack and slash without learning any crazy strategies or tactics.

Me and my friends used to say that a M&B game mixed with a Total War game would be interesting. Fun to think about.

 

[hruza]

It was actually quite complicated but it just didn't work because whoever coded it never tested it. There was a script which kept increasing the morale of troops infinitely so they would have millions of morale points just by standing still. It would only work if there were only a handful of enemies, because the script caused nearby allies to contribute an amount of morale every second. It was also an extremely inefficient script and caused large battles to freeze up but that's another story. Read more here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=320256.0

Interesting. Thanks.