Issues with 0.711 patch

[Volkier]

Any case, I meant to put this up a long long time ago, but was lazy (and hoping somebody else would create a topic w/ this :)
Anyway, just a few things I noticed:


dismounting troops
The units now will dismount when the cannot reach their enemy on horseback. Whereas this obviously was implimented with a good intention, the following is observed:

(1) - Units will dismount (after a while) if you tell them to 'follow you' when you are stationary.
- Units will dismount when you tell them to hold position (after a while) and there are no enemies near that place at the moment.
* The above mentioned can get very very VERY annoying since it hurts bad on the already simplified strategy concept. By the time you want your units to charge, 2 or 3 troops are already dismounted, and ordering them to mount horses wastes precious time.

(2) - Units who dismount when stuck on a slope after they spawned, would remain stuck, even though they are now on foot. In addition, they would sometimes even block more of their troops by the now riderless horses, whereas before, the other troops actually had a chance to 'push' them (and their horses) into turning around and facing away from the wall, while trying to walk forwards.
* The above mentioned nullifies the whole point. (Makes the implimentation annoying)

(3) - Strategically, realistically, and generally speaking, I personally would still prefer to tell my troops what they should be doing. The mounting / dismounting of horses, for no reason, would be plain stupid on the battlefield whichever way you look at it. Sure, in reality troops can dismount and use the horses as a living shield against arrows, however I would think that it would be an order issued by the commander in a no choice situation, since being on top of a horse would increase a troops mobility for fleeing / charging etc.

So based on all the above, I would go on my knees and plead with Armagan to either remove this implimentation, or add an 'toggle order' (toggle button) or some other way to prevent your troops from dismounting by themselves.

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In addition, whereas people have been speaking about strategy in terms of field commands / unit groups or micro management, I noticed that a lot of strategy at the moment comes from what units you have on the field.
(footmen / archers / lance cavalry* (in some mods) etc). This is currently based on who is located in the top slot of your party group being selected first, while the units located in the last party slot are the so called 'reserve' who would get pushed out last, once the battlefield can support the ammount of troops. For example, you have 3 groups of 10 units A, B, C in your party, round 1 the battle allows 14 of your men to enter the field, which would be the whole lot of group A (10 people) and 4 from group B. C is not touched at all. Round 2 allows 22 units, so A, B, and 2 from C are entered. (and so on, I'm sure everyone knows what Im talkin about)

Would it be easy to separate same unit type into different groups, or set a percentage of the type of troops you want on the battlefield? This has been brought up before, however mostly in general strategy topics, and thus drowned amongst the other strategic aspects. I believe a discussion based essentially on this point is suitable, since it should not pose too much of a difficulty to impliment, however I wouldn't really know too well regarding that. (Added it here, since didn't want to make 10 different topics :)

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Lastly, the topic says 'issues', however I only mentioned one, since I couldn't really spot any problems with the other changes. (other than personal preferance, which the game allows the players to toggle on/off more or less anyway). Would be great however, if people add onto this with other issues though :
(Would be good if blood flowed a bit more freely, and was a bit more bloodish, rather than a red tint as well, but that is just personal preference I think, and doesn't affect the physical gameplay)

 

[Kronus]

I only find the "dismount" feature useful with very rugged terrain on where horses have many pains to move arround. In this situations, my knights on foot with the command "follow me" to have them in a group and ensure that any enemy will receive a rain of hits, will do much more damage than if they were mounted.

On any other situations, I concurr with you. The should only dismount when ordered, not on their own.

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It would be cool that on the screen previous to the battle you could select and arrange (in the same way you handle stuff in your inventory) the troops that will go in to the first, second and third assaults, by dragging unit icons on the slots available for each assault.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

I think the dismounting automatically was put in for AI controled enemies or allies, who don't actually use orders, to prevent exploity playing against knights. However, there are apparently (i havn't had these) problems with the current solution.

 

[Volkier]

I have no problems with enemies dismounting, since they start off with a 'charge' command throughout the whole battle, thus they will only dismount if they are really stuck.
Its for when you use commands such as 'hold position' or 'follow me' (while stationary) that your units decide to dismount on their own, is what causing major problems (for me at least - since I use those quite often strategically speaking).
For rugged terran, I agree that troops tend to be better off on foot, (sometimes even in a field actually, but thats a different topic) however, there is already a command which allows you to order all your troops to dismount at the same time anyway. I personally would hit that first thing if I think that the situation needs it, rather than waiting for them to dismount on their own after a while..