Idea on how battles can last longer

[paddy345]

Hey guys as a Total war player I feel the pace of battles in that game is perfect especially if you win by the skin of your teeth after a tense 30 minute struggle. In this game while the pace of combat among cavalry and archers are well balanced, among infantry it's incredibly poor lasting around 30 seconds to a minute depending on numbers.

I believe this is caused due to infantry breaking formation in battle which DIDN'T happen in reality. Fighting as bandits or looters fair enough but professional soldiers fought in formation so as to keep their enemy in front of them. What they didnt do when clashing in combat is break formation exposing their rear just so an enemy could slash them from behind.

If the dev's or modders could include the ability for professional soldiers to stay in formation during combat I believe it would greatly lengthen combat plus make it far more immersive and realistic. Cavalry combat can be quite tense and exciting, archers behave generally how they should be staying away from melee as much as possible but infantry just breaks immersion for me so I feel this would be a great improvement in the right direction. What do you guys think?

 

[Aho]

bro i was thinking about this battles end when you just start getting into it and i have to contradict you on the pace of the battles. They are kind of fast next thing I know its a WWE Rumble Tumble whatever you call it (the one with 30 guys in the ring). I remember in Warband most lords would stay just sniping you or slowly creeping up towards you they do this here too but TW probably is going to add the lord AI later on. They said dickhead lords will be more aggressive and merciful ones will be less wasteful and stuff like this

 

[Moifaso]

I mean, you can make your soldiers hold a formation if you want. I think some peple need to understand that while BN's battles are massive compared to other games of its kind, historically, those hour long battles with clashing formations where on a totally different scale.

The average large scale battle will have your side command between 200-300 infantry, that is simply not enough for the kind of warfare you are describing, since any formation would easily become surrounded.

What would make battles last longer, would be uping the priority soldiers give to blocking (IRL, most soldiers, even on the frontlines, played it pretty safe), but that would make combat significantly less fun imo.

Also, I find the time a battle lasts really depends on who you are facing, I've had armies constantly try to skirmish and then backing off, and others than charge me and flank me right away.

 

[left2live]

Hey guys as a Total war player I feel the pace of battles in that game is perfect especially if you win by the skin of your teeth after a tense 30 minute struggle. In this game while the pace of combat among cavalry and archers are well balanced, among infantry it's incredibly poor lasting around 30 seconds to a minute depending on numbers.

I believe this is caused due to infantry breaking formation in battle which DIDN'T happen in reality. Fighting as bandits or looters fair enough but professional soldiers fought in formation so as to keep their enemy in front of them. What they didnt do when clashing in combat is break formation exposing their rear just so an enemy could slash them from behind.

If the dev's or modders could include the ability for professional soldiers to stay in formation during combat I believe it would greatly lengthen combat plus make it far more immersive and realistic. Cavalry combat can be quite tense and exciting, archers behave generally how they should be staying away from melee as much as possible but infantry just breaks immersion for me so I feel this would be a great improvement in the right direction. What do you guys think?

If you tell your infantry to form a shield wall and stay put they wont move or break formation when the enemies hammer on their shields, i tell my ment to form the wall behind my archers then i make them advance in front while my cavalry is flanking, then i make the cavalry charge from behind. So there is ways to make your units stay in formation

 

[paddy345]

I mean, you can make your soldiers hold a formation if you want. I think some peple need to understand that while BN's battles are massive compared to other games of its kind, historically, those hour long battles with clashing formations where on a totally different scale.

The average large scale battle will have your side command between 200-300 infantry, that is simply not enough for the kind of warfare you are describing, since any formation would easily become surrounded.

What would make battles last longer, would be uping the priority soldiers give to blocking (IRL, most soldiers, even on the frontlines, played it pretty safe), but that would make combat significantly less fun imo.

Also, I find the time a battle lasts really depends on who you are facing, I've had armies constantly try to skirmish and then backing off, and others than charge me and flank me right away.

Well historically battles could typically last an entire day and several days sometimes so longer than 1 minute for several hundred infantry shouldn't be a big ask. I have observed how infantry fight and when they get into combat they break formation seeking out someone to attack leaving themselves open to be hit from behind. They do because of failing to stick together which may be the case for bandits for not professional soldiers unless they were morally broken

 

[paddy345]

If you tell your infantry to form a shield wall and stay put they wont move or break formation when the enemies hammer on their shields, i tell my ment to form the wall behind my archers then i make them advance in front while my cavalry is flanking, then i make the cavalry charge from behind. So there is ways to make your units stay in formation

I haven't seen that, thanks i'll try that out now in a custom battle and observe

 

[paddy345]

By the way there is now a mod that makes battles last longer released already

Mod unavailable

This mod is not currently available

www.nexusmods.com

 

[Barristan Selmy]

The big thing that I notice are that formations prolong the battle. It narrows the front and provides mutual protection from comrades that are preventing others from being flanked or ganged up on. Skirmishes also take quite a bit of time and often cavalry battles occur on the fringes of the map before the infantry engage eachother. All of these things takeup time for the battle to unfold. Larger numbers and more even troop qualities also help. After all, 100 knights will cut through 100 peasants very quickly, but 100 knights fighting their mirrors will last far longer.

 

[Wolfsblut]

I'd just wish time would slow when i give orders, with all those F1 and stuff i guess i will try out the command-by-voice mod at some point.
The commanding is at least similar to Warband... was the only thing i didn't liked about Warband, oh the irony.

 

[moonknight]

If you tell your infantry to form a shield wall and stay put they wont move or break formation when the enemies hammer on their shields, i tell my ment to form the wall behind my archers then i make them advance in front while my cavalry is flanking, then i make the cavalry charge from behind. So there is ways to make your units stay in formation

AI units don't stay in formation, tho. They just charge, and charge, and charge. Soldiers also tend to push with their bodies and they don't mantain distances.

 

[paddy345]

If you tell your infantry to form a shield wall and stay put they wont move or break formation when the enemies hammer on their shields, i tell my ment to form the wall behind my archers then i make them advance in front while my cavalry is flanking, then i make the cavalry charge from behind. So there is ways to make your units stay in formation

Ok i just tried this and you are correct soldiers stay in formation and fight much more how they should within it. Cheers for that.

 

[left2live]

AI units don't stay in formation, tho. They just charge, and charge, and charge. Soldiers also tend to push with their bodies and they don't mantain distances.

If i tell my infantry to form shield wall they aint moving when the enemies are on top of them

 

[moonknight]

If i tell my infantry to form shield wall they aint moving when the enemies are on top of them

Again, the problem is not from the player side, it's from the AI. Expecially when you fight large battles with multiple lords. Even allied lords don't use formations.

 

[CinnamonStickk]

An indicator to see the morale of each side would be good. I've had battles where one good cav charge would instantly break the enemy army or would make half their units break and run.

 

[Moifaso]

Well historically battles could typically last an entire day and several days sometimes so longer than 1 minute for several hundred infantry shouldn't be a big ask. I have observed how infantry fight and when they get into combat they break formation seeking out someone to attack leaving themselves open to be hit from behind. They do because of failing to stick together which may be the case for bandits for not professional soldiers unless they were morally broken

Historically while battles might have lasted entire days, I can assure you that was not the case for the melee portion, they consisted of a lot of back and forth skirmishing a lot of the times, but when the infantry clashed like in game, one side would usually break relatively fast.

 

[danEN]

Well played a total war battle with 500 units max and see how long it lasts.

 

[paddy345]

Well played a total war battle with 500 units max and see how long it lasts.

With heavily armoured soldiers in formations, sometimes quite a good few minutes

 

[danEN]

With heavily armoured soldiers in formations, sometimes quite a good few minutes

And so does a M&B battle, if you have 250 on each side. 100 inf + 75 archers + 75 cav. This would not last long in a Total war battle. Advancing would be the longest part of the battle.

 

[Pacific_Salmon]

I think actual melee combat lasted less than we think it did. As someone else pointed out, a battle that lasted "hours or days" was mostly a series of clashes + ranged skirmishes. the actual decisive melee clash might be over in 10-20 minutes. If you look at today's MMA fighters, they usually fight 3 5-minute rounds and are for the most part exhausted at the end. If we assume that the average soldier back in the day was less fit than today's MMA fighters (who have training + nutrition + knowledge and are more healthy than people in the past), and we also assume that melee combat is as exhausting as an MMA fight, we can see that fighting for hours is impossible. Unless of course you train man to specifically fight in formation where they rotate, preserve energy by not running, not swinging their swords in wild ways etc.

Battles between nomadic tribes in the Asian/Easter European Steppes were interesting because battles could last days, mostly consisted of lots of maneuvering and ranged combat and often resulted in one sided-retreating having suffered relatively very low casualties (mostly among horses, not people).

So battles on the scale of bannerlord where 50 men go up against 70 men could be over very quickly.

Another interesting comparison would be to look at modern "Ustawki" (Polish word). This is when football hooligans between rival teams decide they will have a "fair" brawl somewhere in a field, with say 50 vs 50 with "no equipment". When you see the 2 sides clash (they usually stay in formation before the clash). You can see how chaotic things get and how quickly the fight devolves into a mess. What is also interesting is how quickly it ends. It usually doesn't last more than a few minutes.

Here is an example from Russia: approx 20 vs 20:

Here is another example of a clash in Poland (30 vs 30). Very disorganized, the "skins" team takes the field in less than a minute:

Here is an example from the biggest Viking festival in the world (Wolin, Poland): You can see the clash between "Vikings" and "Slavs". It might give a good idea of what an actual clash looked like. Main clash starts at about 2 minute mark:

 

[Denkelyen]

I conducted a test, not very scientific though- including the mod you mentioned above, the one increases the hp. So, I only made one war with the mod and without the mod in custom battle 500 vs 500. I did not intervene in anything. Just give the order attack and then died and watched. With the mod, it lasted 8 minutes and without the mod 6 minutes. Not that bad I guess. And this is a game after all. I don't want battles to take half an hour.