Low Tier units vs High Tier units

[hruza]

have u actually been in a fight?

Yes. Did you?

3-5 disorganized drunk hot heads don't come at you from all directions and attack together.

Armies on the battlefields are generally not made of disorganized drunks that fall over each other and impale themselves on their own spears.

usually you take out their leader and it's over, maybe 1-2 others will come at you but there's more than enough time and space to back away a little to gain distance

That's a lot of preconditions nicely laid to allow you to win. People usually don't engage in a mortal fight with such intention to loose.

and a proper fighter knows how to position himself and use his opponents as a barrier to prevent being cornered or surrounded.

I am sure it works like that in Hollywood film scenes. The thing you don't realize about those scenes is that they are scripted.

i'm talking about skilled fighters vs none skilled fighters, not blue belts ganging up on a black belt.

No, you're talking about scenes from Hollywood films.

in real life people will prioritize on dodging parrying and blocking instead of attacking especially when outnumbered.

In real fight it's very hard to dodge and parry attacks coming from three different directions at the same time. Moreover it's very hard to dodge and parry such attacks even in scripted scenes of Hollywood films. Which is why in all those Hollywood scenes villains always kindly wait to attack anorectic female superhero one at the time.

so a real fight between 1 skilled fighter and a few goons will take much longer than a slug fest dps race that is the game,

In a real fight between 1 skilled fighter and a few goons skilled fighter will leg it out before fight have even started. He did not became skilled by getting himself killed in a hopeless fights.

On the skeletons of warriors slain at the battle of Visby archeologists have found interesting thing. Lot of skeletons had cuts on their legs. Do you know why that is?

When you want to disable man defending with a shield you use two men: one will feint overhand attack forcing opponent to raise his shield in order to parry the blow coming from above while the other man will chop his legs off. No need for any slug fest, fancy circling and moving around.

That's what outnumbered means in a real fight.

 

[BigFat]

I remember seeing a security video of a couple guys jumping a guy who turned out to be a pro boxer and he dealt with them pretty handily but that video stands out because that situation rarely works out in the outnumbered guys favor. I think even a few conscripts would be able to surround and push a knight to the ground where they could stab him in a lot of circumstances. That said, real life and game balance are two different things and I think a t5 should be able to survive 2-3 t2 by virtue of better gear/higher skill values a decent amount of the time.

 

[Pejot]

We're talking about a game where there's no cooperation between units. Each one of them just tries to hit from one of 4 possible directions so there's no space for taking out a outnumbered warrior. They just spam attacks.
What I would change:
1. How armor works - vanilla one does nothing except looks. RBM does a good job in this case
2. How skills works - in vanilla there's no difference up to 200 skill in weapon. Only after this they start to faint and block properly. Currently You can either have units that can't do anything except attack spam or a looter that can block couched lance. This wholeechanic should be redone so it's more progressive and have different feelable points in progress.
3. Troops xp - right now it's all about grinding t6 troops but t5 and t6 should represent real veterans that come in one of 20-30 soldiers also noble unit numbers should be linked to clan tier so the higher clan tier the more will go with You.
4. Improving tactical part of battles. - currently tactics don't exist in BL
5. Improving strategical approach on the main map - more terrain blockers (creating chokepoints), more usable castles (providing backup if You fight near them) etc.

So we can discuss about changing this stat or that stat while the whole game is still lacking and cannot be improved by changing stats only.

 

[mujadaddy]

3. Troops xp - right now it's all about grinding t6 troops but t5 and t6 should represent real veterans that come in one of 20-30 soldiers also noble unit numbers should be linked to clan tier so the higher clan tier the more will go with You.

So do you think XP should be increased for the highest tiers, or some other solution? I think the PRICE is right for high tiers, but the XP is too fast.

 

[Pejot]

So do you think XP should be increased for the highest tiers, or some other solution? I think the PRICE is right for high tiers, but the XP is too fast.

I think that price is ok but upgrade cost and xp should be a lot higher so You'll really feel that those are guys that survived a lot with You. As compensation I would give them higher chance to be wounded instead of killed. Unfortunately that would be a problem for AI cause I never seen a lord that did not lose a few times and losing in BL is really harsh. This is another thing that should change. So You should get back at least part of Your troops after You get free after defeat.

 

[KingEroc1st]

Yes. Did you?



Armies on the battlefields are generally not made of disorganized drunks that fall over each other and impale themselves on their own spears.



That's a lot of preconditions nicely laid to allow you to win. People usually don't engage in a mortal fight with such intention to loose.



I am sure it works like that in Hollywood film scenes. The thing you don't realize about those scenes is that they are scripted.



No, you're talking about scenes from Hollywood films.



In real fight it's very hard to dodge and parry attacks coming from three different directions at the same time. Moreover it's very hard to dodge and parry such attacks even in scripted scenes of Hollywood films. Which is why in all those Hollywood scenes villains always kindly wait to attack anorectic female superhero one at the time.



In a real fight between 1 skilled fighter and a few goons skilled fighter will leg it out before fight have even started. He did not became skilled by getting himself killed in a hopeless fights.

On the skeletons of warriors slain at the battle of Visby archeologists have found interesting thing. Lot of skeletons had cuts on their legs. Do you know why that is?

When you want to disable man defending with a shield you use two men: one will feint overhand attack forcing opponent to raise his shield in order to parry the blow coming from above while the other man will chop his legs off. No need for any slug fest, fancy circling and moving around.

That's what outnumbered means in a real fight.

learn how to form an cohesive argument before coming back please.
dissecting someone's message into one liners in order to take them out of context individually and argue about semantics is all you have been doing and i've noticed that's all you know how to do around these forums. not just this post but in every post you've gotten involved.
At this point, I'm done trying to reason with you. You're just a stubborn, naive person who insists on digging his foot in, refusing to acknowledge the nuances of a situation you couldn't even begin to grasp. Absolutely zero counterarguments of actual substance, nothing but blind assertions based on idealism, emotion, and the inexplicable need to be right when you don't even know what you're talking about.

 

[mujadaddy]

I think that price is ok but upgrade cost and xp should be a lot higher so You'll really feel that those are guys that survived a lot with You. As compensation I would give them higher chance to be wounded instead of killed.

Yeah, agree with all that; in fact, what they SHOULD (but can't) do is have the XP amount be randomized for each trooper!

Unfortunately that would be a problem for AI cause I never seen a lord that did not lose a few times and losing in BL is really harsh. This is another thing that should change. So You should get back at least part of Your troops after You get free after defeat.

Yeah, the AI is pitiable when they're regathering troops. As far as when I escape, though, what kind of troops do you think you should get? I'd be okay with having an "autorecruit cycle" of troops if you have a city, but if I've just started out, I shouldn't get my 50 levy's back, right? IIRC in Viking Conquest wouldn't they take most of your items and one of your equipped slots? But yeah, I can see a feudal lord giving me a horse and ten men to escort me if I'm hot stuff...

In fact, that would be a cool way to get elite, outside units: get 10 Kuzait noble riders when you are released from Kuzait custody, see if you can train them up!

 

[KingEroc1st]

Yeah, the AI is pitiable when they're regathering troops. As far as when I escape, though, what kind of troops do you think you should get? I'd be okay with having an "autorecruit cycle" of troops if you have a city, but if I've just started out, I shouldn't get my 50 levy's back, right? IIRC in Viking Conquest wouldn't they take most of your items and one of your equipped slots? But yeah, I can see a feudal lord giving me a horse and ten men to escort me if I'm hot stuff...

i think it's cool that most troops don't actually die in battle after you knock them down. but the whole prisoner system needs rework.

historically, when there's enough food the prisoners might be retained and used as slaves or troops else where. but when there's not enough food, they are usually execute en mass or set free to fend for themselves. which is pretty accurately reflected in game.

but in reality. most of the troops in a lost battle would rout/flee instead of get cut down, unless they were quickly surrounded or caught up by cavalry. anyone who's played Crusader Kings 3 would know the battle interaction in that game. if you lose in a fight that's not too one sided, most of your troops would still be alive albeit in a routed state unable to fight.

I think a good implement would be to reduce the prisoners you capture after the fight to a fraction of the wounded troops based on your rogery skill. And a fraction of the rest of the troops that were able to escape. will eventually find the party leader x days later. and this is based on the lord's leadership skill. so if you have max rogery you can capture almost every troop you wound. and if you have max leadership you'll have most of your defeated troops back. this will making battles and troops more dynamic instead of having lords spawn with free troops and every defeated soldier is out of the game.

 

[mujadaddy]

I see, yes: "Dead" should be a much harder condition to trigger, but consequently "Wounded" should take much longer to heal. This will also help with Snowballing.

 

[Pejot]

i think it's cool that most troops don't actually die in battle after you knock them down. but the whole prisoner system needs rework.

historically, when there's enough food the prisoners might be retained and used as slaves or troops else where. but when there's not enough food, they are usually execute en mass or set free to fend for themselves. which is pretty accurately reflected in game.

but in reality. most of the troops in a lost battle would rout/flee instead of get cut down, unless they were quickly surrounded or caught up by cavalry. anyone who's played Crusader Kings 3 would know the battle interaction in that game. if you lose in a fight that's not too one sided, most of your troops would still be alive albeit in a routed state unable to fight.

I think a good implement would be to reduce the prisoners you capture after the fight to a fraction of the wounded troops based on your rogery skill. And a fraction of the rest of the troops that were able to escape. will eventually find the party leader x days later. and this is based on the lord's leadership skill. so if you have max rogery you can capture almost every troop you wound. and if you have max leadership you'll have most of your defeated troops back. this will making battles and troops more dynamic instead of having lords spawn with free troops and every defeated soldier is out of the game.

To make it simplistic for the game itself You get back every troop that escaped from battle.
When You see that defeat is inevitable You order them to retreat and wait until most of them do it. If You didn't fall and retreated yourself you spawn in some distance from enemy with the troops that were able to retreat but if You die You get them back after becoming free again. If You didn't manage to order a retreat or died before they finished retreating You get back only those who routed or managed to retreat after Your order.

If You own a fief they could go back there and if not they can wait for You in closest friendly settlement.

As for wounded I would say that they should add another factor that represents % of troops that were severely wounded and are useless to capture (they die or become crippled so they have no value as slaves). This one could be based on medical and roguery skills. Also prisoners should require food.

 

[BigFat]

Maybe not all the troops who escaped but a percentage of them and have it increase with your leadership skill.

 

[KingEroc1st]

To make it simplistic for the game itself You get back every troop that escaped from battle.
When You see that defeat is inevitable You order them to retreat and wait until most of them do it. If You didn't fall and retreated yourself you spawn in some distance from enemy with the troops that were able to retreat but if You die You get them back after becoming free again. If You didn't manage to order a retreat or died before they finished retreating You get back only those who routed or managed to retreat after Your order.

the problem is not mainly how the player interacts but how AI does it. right now all the ai just duke it out in battles and almost NEVER retreat despite horrible odds. (i have seen 1000 men army eventually retreating when there's 20 guys left, or when my opponent has too many recruits their morale break as we fight and 30% of their troops end up fleeing)
i mean even if you caught up to a party, and they didn't want to fight but you insisted on it. the enemy ai in game right now would commit to the fight, but in reality in that scenario they would immediately retreat when the battle started and only your cavalry might catch a few slow guys in the back. But all this requires extensive coding for the AI, and the implementation of an actual retreat system for the player, might be too imba.

what I'm suggesting is quite simple. after a battle, there will be a rogue skill check for the winner, and based on that a % of the wounded troops from the loser will be captured as prisoners, the rest will run away.
but instead of having those units erased from the game. another leadership skill check would occur for the loser of the battle, and a % of the troops that were able to flee, would come back to his holding or find him personally as a roaming party.

i mean if you look at "troops" as a currency in game. it would seem that the vast majority of of it being used by ai lords. and there's a lot of magic generation and dumping. every time a battle occurs, all the wounded from the losers side end up sold to the nearest town's slave market for cash (but we all know lords don't actually need money, they get free everything magically generated). and then when the defeated lord or his clan decides to field another party. they magically spawn with troops of various tiers (including tier 6). And i think that system of magically generating troops for ai and dumping them all to the slave trader has got to go.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

i mean if you look at "troops" as a currency in game. it would seem that the vast majority of of it being used by ai lords. and there's a lot of magic generation and dumping. every time a battle occurs, all the wounded from the losers side end up sold to the nearest town's slave market for cash (but we all know lords don't actually need money, they get free everything magically generated). and then when the defeated lord or his clan decides to field another party. they magically spawn with troops of various tiers (including tier 6). And i think that system of magically generating troops for ai and dumping them all to the slave trader has got to go.

I would like if there was in fact a finite amount of able bodied men you could turn into soldiers. That, along with the AI actually having to acknowledge that. Something like having too few men in their kingdom makes them a lot likelier to just surrender and yield.

 

[five bucks]

While I think there's quite a strong realism case for 1 elite armored guy being able to survive fighting a group of 5 untrained, armorless wastrels (especially since the common argument "they tackle him and grab his arms" literally can't happen in Bannerlord), obviously some people will never be convinced that it's realistic. However, those people should consider the following:

* Plenty of people consider it realistic enough, at least as many as those who don't. If not more.
* Those who don't find it realistic can mod the game easily enough.

That argument applies to both parties, but I propose the default in vanilla should be "A unit's tier is a rough guide to how many recruits it can fight at once and survive." Because:

* Higher tier melee units will be worth the effort and money. Currently T5 melee units have 6 times the wage cost of recruits, plus the time you spend training them and the upgrade costs, despite most of them barely being able to go 1v2 with recruits.
* The player will get a more satisfying sense of progression. It just isn't fun to see your elite units you worked hard on being weak as ****.
* It's a nice, easy rule to remember that allows the player to make an informed tactical guess on how fights will go between formations of different tier.
* It will aid TW's balancing between different unit types to have a general "benchmark" of how each unit should be performing.

I personally like it being this way as the AI is less handicapped by having lower tier troops than the player's party which can easily be all T6.

@anoddhermit In that case, just increase the upgrade cost of higher-tier units. But they really need to be effective and worth having.

 

[anoddhermit]

@anoddhermit In that case, just increase the upgrade cost of higher-tier units. But they really need to be effective and worth having.

I agree but the fine line is between worth using some of them vs. stacking them is the obvious strategy. If it becomes a no brainer, the player gets very little out of the diversity of troop trees/tiers and also steamrolls AI armies to a point that it can be dull.

 

[five bucks]

I agree but the fine line is between worth using some of them vs. stacking them is the obvious strategy. If it becomes a no brainer, the player gets very little out of the diversity of troop trees/tiers and also steamrolls AI armies to a point that it can be dull.

It should always be a no-brainer to upgrade your troops if you can afford it - that's why it's called an "upgrade" and not a sidegrade.

If you're concerned about it becoming dull, that can be avoided. Implement a soft counter system, similar to what they have in multiplayer, where different types of troop are designed to have an advantage against other troop types (for example, pikemen counter cavalry with their braced pikes), which is just strong enough that a lower-tier troop can defeat a higher-tier one if they counter them (e.g. T5 Vanguard can't charge down a T4 Billman's pike without getting killed).

In this way, though upgrading is still the correct decision, the question is whether you spend your limited money on upgrading deep or wide. Higher-tier troops perform better all around, but run the risk of encountering lower-tier troops that counter them. So rather than rushing the highest tier troops possible, for roughly the same amount of upgrade money, you might decide to have a lower-tier army with more diverse composition that can deal with all threats.

 

[Philozoraptor]

For reference, this is one of the most realistic depictions of formation vs "horde" (looters, recruits, whatever) in television and probably the type of combat people are referencing to when they mention few skilled soldiers vs unskilled mass that outnumbers them.

 

[KingEroc1st]

I would like if there was in fact a finite amount of able bodied men you could turn into soldiers. That, along with the AI actually having to acknowledge that. Something like having too few men in their kingdom makes them a lot likelier to just surrender and yield.

Maybe turn "prosperity" into a population thing related to recruitment. but this is frankly such a complicated numbers game to balance. it would make logical sense that densely populated empire towns can and will support larger armies than sparsely populated Khuzait steppe lands

which would mean each faction will not only have a difference in troop types but also numbers. but all dynamic. this might be a good balance since Horse archers are so op while infantry units are so expandable in terms of their combat effectiveness.

 

[Foxwell Covington]

I think that almost everyone here agrees with the gap between low and high-tier units is not as relevant as it should be. I personally think the gap is too big in Warband, but in Bannerlord it is totally the opposite, and this brings some issues which make the game feel less rewarding, challenging, and not immersive. People mostly blame armor, but I think the biggest reason because high-tier units do not feel as strong as they should, is because the equipment is simply 200% more relevant than skill in this game.

I totally agree. Weapon skill needs to either be higher for high tier units or be tweaked to have a greater effect. I'm noticably losing twitch skills as I age but I can still easily win a tournament on day one of a new playthrough by beating Caladog with my 5 2-Handed skill, he should kick my fu(king arse. I'm not scared of anyone in the world at any time but I'm scared of being surrounded by 8 looters. T5 Infantry should be parrying constantly and cut lower tiers to shreds. Realistic Battle Mod (AI) helps with this somewhat.

 

[black_bulldog]

As a longtime M&B player I remember actually being concerned going up against T5 troops if I didn't have really good weapons and armor because I knew I'd get my a$$ kicked. Any army with a bunch of Nord Huscarls or Rhodok Sharpshooters would give me real pause about rushing the enemy lines. But then I remember being scared less if I was playing an infantry and had to go against Swadia, oh how the times have changed.