Keep Fights after Sieges - Good Idea, but

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The thing about hideouts is, that you have to partake in the mission, whereas if you don't feel like storming the keep you can just send your troops to do the job.
Haven´t done it yet, wouldn´t the risk be too high that my high tier troops will die then, like when fighting against looters...
 
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Haven´t done it yet, wouldn´t the risk be to high that my high tier troops will die then, like when fighting against looters...
It is almost perfectly safe because it is calculated as your entire party/army vs. the handful of dudes who made it into the keep. You'll honestly lose more dudes (and noble ones at that) actually fighting the battle.
 
Good to know, my usual hideout playstyle is like:

- select all troops > F4 > F1 > F3
- go afk, do something else on the PC
- fight boss battle after 3-4 minutes

I like the idea of those hideouts but after like 20 battles they just get repetitive / boring. Worst is the sea riders hideout because of the caves (required time to finish it).
 
A nice middle ground would be barricades that you have to knock down, whilst the enemy archers pick you off one by one and some sort of randomization regarding chokepoints.
That's actually realistic. I would also add a timer for the attacker (under any excuse), so the keep fight are a more unique challenge. For example, if the timer runs out, you still win, but the remaining defending NPCs escape through a secret tunnel.
 
For example, if the timer runs out, you still win, but the remaining defending NPCs escape through a secret tunnel.
That would be... Interesting.
But NPC parties without lords to command them would just go to the nearest town to disband. It would work if we could encounter enemy lords in the keep aswell, retreating through the secret tunnel with some men, only to come back in full force.
 
Defensive sieges (to my knowledge) follow the same ruleset as offensive ones. It is the same mission. But yes, I would also say that the defensive siege experience provides less value to players currently in contrast to offensive sieges because it happens much less frequently - and it would be nice if we could find a balanced solution that would allow players to experience them more often. (We have already made some such tweaks throughout EA - such as having the AI take player strength into account less strongly when they calculate a siege target or an assault action.)
I thought something that could be cool for keep battles and I thnik everyone would enjoy and would be easy to implment, since this feature exist already in game:

"Keep Battle Duels"

This happens when a clan member, lord, king/emperor retreats inside the keep instead fighting to the death on the walls. When the play hero breaks inside the Keep the NPC Hero will approach him, just like the bandit leader on hideouts do, and offer a duel. Two variants:

  • Duel - Player win: Lord Imprisoned or Dead / Player Lose: Lord goes free, but settlement conquered
  • Kill them all - self explanatory
Do you think this could be considered?
 
This happens when a clan member, lord, king/emperor retreats inside the keep instead fighting to the death on the walls. When the play hero breaks inside the Keep the NPC Hero will approach him, just like the bandit leader on hideouts do, and offer a duel.
For this to happen, they'd need to rework the way morale functions and the load-in behavior because currently defending nobles are spawned in the first wave and 100% get downed early on.

Maybe they should only appear on the wall if Daring, with other lords holding at/near the keep?
 
While I'm no actual engineer, I think that would be the cheapest option. However, if it provides a poor experience, that may reflect badly on the product. That time may then be better spend on improving existing siege experiences.
No offense but soldiers not being able to use siege towers properly (for example) since release is reflecting extremely bad light on the product the entire time! Every time we are offering advice (which we actually tested in mod) to make AI better we are met with silence.
 
For this to happen, they'd need to rework the way morale functions and the load-in behavior because currently defending nobles are spawned in the first wave and 100% get downed early on.

Maybe they should only appear on the wall if Daring, with other lords holding at/near the keep?
Yes, the traits should take predence on their moves. Daring/Brave, I don't remember all of thm, because I just got recently back in playing now.
But those with valour and bravery would affect that and be more willing to fight on the walls, but I'm still against the Lords fighting to th death on walls, that isn't what most commanders would do if they could keep resistance on the Keep.
 
No offense but soldiers not being able to use siege towers properly (for example) since release is reflecting extremely bad light on the product the entire time! Every time we are offering advice (which we actually tested in mod) to make AI better we are met with silence.
No offense taken. If you link me your suggestion, I am happy to check it out and forward it to relevant people.
 
No offense taken. If you link me your suggestion, I am happy to check it out and forward it to relevant people.
30 minutes talk / chat on discord would probably solve it. But with Marnah, he is the main coder and AI expert in our team, I am more of researcher and formula / XML tweaker. So should he contact you (I think he is on your discord, we got our mod discord aswell) or someone else about it? Or should I ask him to write down his suggestions / solutions and send it to you?
 
30 minutes talk / chat on discord would probably solve it. But with Marnah, he is the main coder and AI expert in our team, I am more of researcher and formula / XML tweaker. So should he contact you (I think he is on your discord, we got our mod discord aswell) or someone else about it? Or should I ask him to write down his suggestions / solutions and send it to you?
Oh it sounded like you had already posted/submitted the suggestions. If you haven't formulated them, it may be best to write them down, yes. You can easily reach me/us on the modding discord as well.
 
Oh it sounded like you had already posted/submitted the suggestions. If you haven't formulated them, it may be best to write them down, yes. You can easily reach me/us on the modding discord as well.
I roughly described them in discussions about AI but its better to describe them specificly (since Marnah understands them on coding level). Also github for our AI changes (and also combat changes can be found there) is here. It includes stuff like more organic troop behaviour, troops properly using ladders, no more crazy pushing like robots etc.
 
  • Duel - Player win: Lord Imprisoned or Dead / Player Lose: Lord goes free, but settlement conquered
  • Kill them all - self explanatory
Do you think this could be considered?
Yeah, anything that doesn't throw troops away in clunky, un-mangle bot on bot fights is good. It be a cool flavor too if some lord personalities, if in the besieged fiefs, would challenge you to a duel at certain time of building siege camp, if you lose it sets back the siege camp progress and you lose moral, but if you win the lord parties won't fight in the siege... or something. Also small sally out skirmishes would be cool too, like in warband where only if they have beyond a excess in the fief and a lord, will they attack with a small portion. Like at night certain lords-types will try and sneak attack on your camp
 
Permadeath will be a very cool feature after proper balance. After it will be enabled for all fights and not only for the PC.
Even lords and kings died on the battlefield not to mention deadly illnesses.
 
It feels to me like you are misunderstanding that particular point.

To elaborate further - these things are not developed in isolation. That is to say if we pursue one thing, we do so by not pursuing something else. Similarly, if we chose to not pursue that one thing, we do so in favor of something else. All of these options can enhance the sandbox experience and must be prioritized according to their assumed costs and benefits.

I don't want people to get the impression that all is set in stone because I keep going back to this point (to clarify it). It is only my current impressions that the cost and benefits of this aspect are worse than those of other priorities. Maybe a good solution will be identified that can drastically reduce costs. Maybe other people will view the value higher than I do.

To get a bit more back on topic - A question to those that are interested in defensive keep fights. Would you feel that the current offensive set up would offer an enjoyable defensive experience to you? That is to say - no control over your troops, no reinforcements for your side and generally a mission that you are quite likely to lose (or, well, are intended to lose - since another challenge may be players exploiting the terrain to simply 1on1 200 bots and basically mean that no siege has to be lost anymore... encouraging that very approach). If not, how do you imagine it should work?
Personally I don't like that approach to keep battles at all. The AI and you should flee to the keep as a last ditch effort because it IMPROVES your chances. Why add the keep feature if you design it to be a losing battle and therefore make it only a boring additional step to your inevitable victory?
IMO the defenders should have a significantly easier fight in the keep when falling below a certain number of troops. This would make it a fun and reasonable action not only for the AI but also for the player as defender.
Pls think about this.
 
Personally I don't like that approach to keep battles at all. The AI and you should flee to the keep as a last ditch effort because it IMPROVES your chances. Why add the keep feature if you design it to be a losing battle and therefore make it only a boring additional step to your inevitable victory?
IMO the defenders should have a significantly easier fight in the keep when falling below a certain number of troops. This would make it a fun and reasonable action not only for the AI but also for the player as defender.
Pls think about this.
Just as it was "supposed" to work in the 2016 E3 video, right?
giphy.gif


... Too much "work in progress and subject to change" ... apparently ? :iamamoron: .


I always thought about:

City siege:
  • Wall fight phase,
  • street fight → retreat to citadel
  • and last keep defence (with the possibility of a deal attacker/defender).
Castle siege:
  • Wall fight phase,
  • second defence ring fight → retreat to citadel
  • and last keep defence (with the possibility of a deal attacker/defender).
Surely I thought too much...??
 
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