I kill 2 looters rest runs off like coward?

[hihowareyou]

Hello, For example I begin a fresh game with 10 recruits in my army and enemy has 13 looters. But whenever we kill 2 of them, the rest are escaping like a coward. It is also happening in Sea bandits too. It is not logical to run off like that. My question is, is that a bug or normal feature? Thank you.

Version:1.5.8
Mods: No mods, only vanilla

 

[Oakenlix]

People don't always make logical decisions and sometimes people are cowards.
Imagine you think you're ambushing a group of travelers, but before you know it you see two of your friends getting their faces chopped off. You would probably run away too.

 

[Silfir]

What's illogical about it? They thought they outnumbered you and that you were easy pickings. These guys aren't soldiers, they're the lowest kind of criminal scum. Probably the lowest morale out of any troop in the game. You don't become a Looter by having two brain cells to rub together.

 

[hihowareyou]

People don't always make logical decisions and sometimes people are cowards.
Imagine you think you're ambushing a group of travelers, but before you know it you see two of your friends getting their faces chopped off. You would probably run away too.

What's illogical about it? They thought they outnumbered you and that you were easy pickings. These guys aren't soldiers, they're the lowest kind of criminal scum. Probably the lowest morale out of any troop in the game. You don't become a Looter by having two brain cells to rub together.

Yeah I understand that point, but I'm killing them in their way on escape too. And they dont event fight back. What kind of a retard would let himself die and not attack back when someone is hitting him continously

 

[SGT_Night]

Hello, For example I begin a fresh game with 10 recruits in my army and enemy has 13 looters. But whenever we kill 2 of them, the rest are escaping like a coward. It is also happening in Sea bandits too. It is not logical to run off like that. My question is, is that a bug or normal feature? Thank you.

Version:1.5.8
Mods: No mods, only vanilla

answering your question, is a normal feature, every soldier in the game have a "morale", whenever a friendly is killed the morale drops, whenever an enemy is killed the friendly morale increases, so if too many friendly soldiers get killed fast the morale will drop significally, then when it hits a minimun level, troops will start to withdraw.

Also high tier units are less likely too suffer from morale penalties, they tend to fight until the last stand.

 

[SGT_Night]

Yeah I understand that point, but I'm killing them in their way on escape too. And they dont event fight back. What kind of a retard would let himself die and not attack back when someone is hitting him continously

I got u, ppl complained alot about that, there is even mods that made the A.I fight back even if they are retreating...

 

[Hans 77]

I always thought it was funny how in Warband a group of 10 looters would fight to the last man against my doomstack of 155 Nord Huscarls.

Not only that, they would actually charge at us!

These brave lions of Thermopylae -with their lack of shoes, no shirts, and funny beanie hats, fought with stout hearts and legendary courage.

Spoiler

And then they were slaughtered in 5 seconds.

Warband looters were real chads, while the behavior of their Bannerlord cousins is just shameful.

F's in the chat for the real heroes of Calradia!

 

[hihowareyou]

answering your question, is a normal feature, every soldier in the game have a "morale", whenever a friendly is killed the morale drops, whenever an enemy is killed the friendly morale increases, so if too many friendly soldiers get killed fast the morale will drop significally, then when it hits a minimun level, troops will start to withdraw.

Also high tier units are less likely too suffer from morale penalties, they tend to fight until the last stand.

That makes sense, thank you. I only wish they could do more fight so we have more battle experience rather than catching escaping rats all the time..

I got u, ppl complained alot about that, there is even mods that made the A.I fight back even if they are retreating...

I will try that thing thanks.

I always thought it was funny how in Warband a group of 10 looters would fight to the last man against my doomstack of 155 Nord Huscarls.

Not only that, they would actually charge at us!

These brave lions of Thermopylae -with their lack of shoes, no shirts, and funny beanie hats, fought with stout hearts and legendary courage.

Spoiler

And then they were slaughtered in 5 seconds.

Warband looters were real chads, while the behavior of their Bannerlord cousins is just shameful.

F's in the chat for the real heroes of Calradia!

Nice magazine wallpaper

 

[Oakenlix]

I always thought it was funny how in Warband a group of 10 looters would fight to the last man against my doomstack of 155 Nord Huscarls.

Not only that, they would actually charge at us!

These brave lions of Thermopylae -with their lack of shoes, no shirts, and funny beanie hats, fought with stout hearts and legendary courage.

Spoiler

And then they were slaughtered in 5 seconds.

Warband looters were real chads, while the behavior of their Bannerlord cousins is just shameful.

F's in the chat for the real heroes of Calradia!

Don't forget Bannerlord is a prequel, so the Warband looter is the evolved, improved, almost superhuman version that will always be remembered as the ultimate badass.

 

[XDaron]

I had the same sensation, looter routing lately seems to be exacerbated.

 

[Silfir]

Yeah I understand that point, but I'm killing them in their way on escape too. And they dont event fight back. What kind of a retard would let himself die and not attack back when someone is hitting him continously

The one who figures running is more likely to end with them not dead. They don't know if you will actually pursue them if they run. They just know they will definitely die if they stick around. Even if you pursue them, they figure maybe there's a chance they might get away.

Or it's just that one guy loses their **** and wants to be the one with the biggest head start, the guys next to him notice he runs and also lose their ****, and the result is a rout. Lots of historical battles end in routs, with the victorious army pursuing the fleeing soldiers and effortlessly cutting them down. This is working exactly as intended. (Granted, deciding to fight to the death in the first place should be much rarer for severely outnumbered Looters. They should just become prisoners by choice much more often. It forces you to pick on someone your own size to gain combat experience.)

There are actually valid complaints to be made about AI behavior here. Maybe not all looters should be breaking for the nearest map edge - if there is exactly one guy on horseback, they should take off in different directions.

There are also valid complaints to be made about a lack of options to train troops in the early game. Your post seems to suggest that's the core problem you're trying to deal with, and I actually agree, it's just that your solution sucks.

Personally I think some of your men should be able to spawn as practice partners in the arena and be able to gain experience. As of now I think the guys that spawn in the arena are already chosen from visiting parties or possibly the garrison, so there just needs to be code that grants experience to the guys that happen to be from your party. That would be my solution. I think it makes more sense than treating Looters as walking training dummies who throw rocks and don't wash.

 

[hihowareyou]

The one who figures running is more likely to end with them not dead. They don't know if you will actually pursue them if they run. They just know they will definitely die if they stick around. Even if you pursue them, they figure maybe there's a chance they might get away.

Or it's just that one guy loses their **** and wants to be the one with the biggest head start, the guys next to him notice he runs and also lose their ****, and the result is a rout. Lots of historical battles end in routs, with the victorious army pursuing the fleeing soldiers and effortlessly cutting them down. This is working exactly as intended. (Granted, deciding to fight to the death in the first place should be much rarer for severely outnumbered Looters. They should just become prisoners by choice much more often. It forces you to pick on someone your own size to gain combat experience.)

There are actually valid complaints to be made about AI behavior here. Maybe not all looters should be breaking for the nearest map edge - if there is exactly one guy on horseback, they should take off in different directions.

There are also valid complaints to be made about a lack of options to train troops in the early game. Your post seems to suggest that's the core problem you're trying to deal with, and I actually agree, it's just that your solution sucks.

Personally I think some of your men should be able to spawn as practice partners in the arena and be able to gain experience. As of now I think the guys that spawn in the arena are already chosen from visiting parties or possibly the garrison, so there just needs to be code that grants experience to the guys that happen to be from your party. That would be my solution. I think it makes more sense than treating Looters as walking training dummies who throw rocks and don't wash.

Today I gave up. It was 29 looters vs my 14 infantry man, and they attacked me. After we kill their 6 man the remaining 23 begin to root. That is just stupid dude. After that battle I did alt+f4 and I give a long pause for 3 month again. Hope something worth playing comes in next patches.

 

[danEN]

Today I gave up. It was 29 looters vs my 14 infantry man, and they attacked me. After we kill their 6 man the remaining 23 begin to root. That is just stupid dude. After that battle I did alt+f4 and I give a long pause for 3 month again. Hope something worth playing comes in next patches.

oh no not peasant lowlife cowards running from a fight, how is this a thing

 

[Antaeus]

I wouldn't be sticking around to see what happens when a rather large armoured mounted person with a 2 metre glaive has just revealed the contents of my best friend's skull all over my chest.

If my only weapon is a sharpened broom.

Not yesterday.

Remember most casualties in ancient battle happen in 2 situations. Firstly when one side routs and runs, secondly when one side is surrounded and fights till the last (then the casualties are shared)

What I'd like to see is more complex behaviour amongst lords. They never surrender, and only retreat when 80/5 of them are dead. But hey. I'm happy with the looter target practice for now.

 

[Apocal]

I had the same sensation, looter routing lately seems to be exacerbated.

I think it has to do with adjustments to morale damage. Earlier people noticed that cavalry would virtually never rout because the AOE for morale damage was too small to effect them. They increased it (or did something else) and now looters (who had shaky morale) are getting hit with more morale impacts instead of being limited to the men in their immediate radius.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

They need to just make them run slower when they rout, so they get killed and your troops level up, you can be rid of them for quest credit and to keep the field clean. Same with other bandits. Normal troops it's fine for them to run faster as them escaping can possibly help/hurt campaign stuff, but bandits are just junk on the map and making the player engage them multiple time just for "brigand quest" credit or leveling recruits is BAD GAMEPLAY. Yes we can just auto-calc to avoid it, BOY WE ALL SURE LOVE DOING THAT.....

 

[Ling*]

@hihowareyou There is a mod called Fight to the End that solves this exact problem by removing the routing feature from the game. All units on the battlefield will fight to the death. Some people don't like this, but I personally don't care what those people like, if routing is considered a problem for your playthrough, simply install a mod to fix the aspect of the game that you find annoying. I don't know how up-to-date this particular mod has been kept, but it was working for me on 1.5.5 atleast so it probably still works on 1.5.8.

 

[froggyluv]

As well as the above mod there was another one i think it was called Defend Yourself and it had a in between option of AI running but also fighting back on their way out. This is exactly the time of nuance needed for this game imo to prevent that "samey" feel of always encountering the same reactions. Combat is never predictable in RL

 

[Medivhtratos]

Please don't slow them down when they flee, I get a speed bonus for that to lvl up my athletics faster, if I run/ride ahead of them and than charge them. A 9.0 speed multiplier by a perfect thrust is just so good for athletics.

A solution for leveling your troops could be, that your troops get at least the half of exp for those who had escaped the battle field(as gratitude for their cheering, damn I wish there is a button for mocking cheering units)

 

[five bucks]

Rather than low-level units being huge cowards and high-level units being unfeeling robots who know no fear, I think the morale system should be a more gradual curve.

How morale with tier works now

* T0-T1 units very easily chain-rout after about 10% of their force dies.

* T3-T6 units almost never rout regardless of what happens.

How morale with tier should work

* T1-T2 units (looters, new soldiers, etc) rout if any two of the following things happen: their morale before the battle is less than high, or their commander's leadership is less than high, or their commander is downed, or they get flank attacked, or get charged by higher tier enemies, or their formation takes a small amount of casualties quickly, or the non-routed enemy currently outnumbers their non-routed army by 2-4x or more.

So to apply this system to OP's example, where he killed 2 looters and 11 ran away:
* If he killed 8 looters but took 8 casualties of his own, the remaining 5 looters would fight to the death.
* If he killed 8 looters, with no casualties, in a short period of time, the remaining 5 looters would rout. (Outnumbered + quick kills).
* If he brought T2 troops instead and killed 8 looters, the remaining 5 looters would rout. (Outnumbered + charged by higher tier).

* T3-T4 units (regular soldiers) rout if any three of the following things happen: their morale before the battle is less than normal, or their commander's leadership is less than normal, or their commander is downed, or they get flank attacked, or get charged by higher tier enemies, or their formation takes a medium amount of casualties quickly, or the non-routed enemy currently outnumbers their non-routed army by 6-8x or more.

* T5-6 units (veterans and elites) will rout if any four of the following things happen: their pre-battle morale is at the lowest, or their commander has very low leadership, or they get flank attacked, or their formation takes high casualties quickly, or their commander is downed, or the non-routed enemy currently outnumbers their non-routed army by 10-12x or more. This would be behaviour appropriate of a well-trained elite corps who will fight loyally to the death for the cause of a leader they believe in, but will not fight suicidally if they have no reason for it.

* T0.5 - equivalent units (farmers and other noncombatants) should always rout if they get flank attacked, or get charged by higher tier enemies, or their formation takes casualties quickly, or the combat ready enemy currently outnumbers their non-routed army by 1.5x or more. Non-combatants running away very early in a battle makes sense.

And on top of all this, obviously commander proximity, leadership, enemy deaths, taking damage etc. have a small positive or negative impact too.

So let's say you're commanding a mixed army of T1 and T6 against a similar enemy force, and you have normal morale and leadership, and the enemy T6 charges your T1. The T1 will break and run without putting up a fight. But your T6 troops will fight to the end, even though they are outnumbered. You can use them to charge the enemy's T1 in turn and rout them.