Mount and Blade Strategy Battle View

[Septim]

To all us rampant RPG'ers out there, we often forget that there are some quite different genres that Mount and Blade could be expanding into - in small but effective ways.

What I propose is an optional strategy view of the battlefield and a ''sitback'' role in a battle while your troops go in to the fray.
Why should a lord so kingly as yourself actually enter the direct fighting?

The change would possibly include:

-A Companion chosen to be field commander, giving him/her independent extra health.
-A Simple birds eye view in the existing battlefield, possibly with 30 degrees of pitch. (This eliminates any chance of visual bugs during rotation of the field)
-A 'Follow' function, to follow a single troop or group of troops from high up - or close up.
-A Pre-battle placing function to place troops in their respective groups, and in respective distances from the enemy - Archers, Cavalry, Infantry. Nothing too fancy, such as formations.
-Red/Green/Yellow circles around troops on the field - Enemy, Your own, Allied troops; respectively.\
-A chance to enter the battlefield after strategy view is activated, but a timer of 3 minutes is held. After 3 minutes, you have to fight it out from above.

Basically a simple option to control the field from afar, losing would have the same consequences, as would winning the same benefits.
Just a thought on a way to fight your battles if you are slightly or direly wounded and trust more in your troops than your own ability.

 

[Nodscouter]

Interesting idea, but I'd say if you want to be a real general then you should sit on your horse a bit away from the battlefield. I think if we'd introduce a bird view then M&B would lose a bit of realism. That being said, would be interesting to have a mod with that, but at least keep it away from the original.

 

[Aeon221]

Some of that is already in. Hit backspace while playing a tactical battle and the tactical overlay pops up, complete with up to the minute statistics on how the battle is going and a minimap that allows you to issue orders and move troops via mouseclick placeable flags. Prebattle placement is already a function of one of the easily integrated OSP kits, as are formations and a number of other tactical features.

The rest of the stuff seems silly -- why would I want a field commander or a follow cam when I could just walk my ass after a group and stare at them without fighting? Birds eye view is anachronistic and unnecessary when we have the shift key and horses.  Own and allied troops are already identified by heraldry circles over their heads.

Just about the only addition I'd like is for command flags to have a permanent physical placement on the field so that I can see where my troops are supposed to be.

 

[Griffinhawk]

Real men lead from the front.

 

[kingofnoobia]

Point is that a general actually cannot properly order his army around once it's in a fight, and definitely not if he's not actually in the fray himself. The Total War games may give you a different view on it, but a general actually has almost no control over his army once it's in battle. M&B's commanding system may be somewhat crude, I believe it's close enough to reality: it's impossible to micromanage a fighting army the way most strategy games allow you to, the best you can do is shout stuff to your soldiers and hope they make something sensible out of it. Any 'intelligent' tactics have generally already been managed before the fighting even starts.

Although the series historical fiction, 'Rome' depicts this particularly well in the Battle of Philippi, in my opinion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wQ_6cVXTQk - mostly referring to the part where Octavian asks Antony "What's happening, do you know it?"; reply: "No idea." That, and the general chaos of the battle). I'm quite aware that there's plenty of unrealistic things in the fighting itself, but the general tactics seem to be accurate enough.

 

[Septim]

To respond to some things here, first off, Mount and Blade does not strive for realism. Just a few things to prove this, you can tell all your troops at once to follow you, stop fighting, change their weapons, and they will do it no matter where they are or how overwhelmed they are. Not very realistic. If we want realism, bravery should be a trait that your troops take on so that if they face a higher level of troop they are at a disadvantage to obeying your orders. A peasant woman is hardly likely to attack a Swadian knight head on, now is she?

A second point, The idea is for Optional sit-back, where your character has a choice. This wouldn't effect anyone wanting to enter the battle at all times to be a 'real-man' who then gets captured because he had no health to begin with, and dies from falling off a small mountain. Unless you are using cheats it is very hard to survive an entire battle on 1% of health or thereabout.

The third point I think actually proves and disproves my idea, About Rome, yes a general would never be able to fully control his army. But in mount and blade, you can. As in the first point, there is never a single man who disobeys your orders. If you have 1 archer and 100 infantry and order the 1 archer to move forward 100 paces until he dies in a sea of bandits, or whatever, he will. How does that make any sense?

Okay so after all of that, I myself don't mind that the idea of a strategy view would probably fail. It is after all, a mere suggestion.

 

[Septim]

Birds eye view is anachronistic and unnecessary when we have the shift key and horses.

Uhm, yes. A birds eye view is anachronistic, but so is a dynamic world map and the 'shift key' function. There weren't any binoculars either. They are all user interfaces, they do not mess with the time-frame of the game.

 

[Slasher_X]

I agree with Septim, Mount & Blade needs some extra zest now and then. I can think of another good use for this idea in which the world map is beefed up a little and when you travel on it you have a string of troops (you party) travelling in formation, instead of this one man icon party. The formation you travel on the world map could effect the outcome of a battle. For instance if you select a triple filed line then you will increase your party speed but get a small tactics penalty (This would be excellent when you have a very large party, as in M&B your speed is dreadful when you have a party of greater than 100, and you don't really have to worry about being ambushed); and if you travel the world map in a box formation then you will decrease your party speed but increase you tactics (This could be a good idea if you have a smaller party).

This is just an idea but I'm sure many would find that is would be pretty cool. 

 

[kingofnoobia]

To respond to some things here, first off, Mount and Blade does not strive for realism. Just a few things to prove this, you can tell all your troops at once to follow you, stop fighting, change their weapons, and they will do it no matter where they are or how overwhelmed they are. Not very realistic. If we want realism, bravery should be a trait that your troops take on so that if they face a higher level of troop they are at a disadvantage to obeying your orders. A peasant woman is hardly likely to attack a Swadian knight head on, now is she?

A second point, The idea is for Optional sit-back, where your character has a choice. This wouldn't effect anyone wanting to enter the battle at all times to be a 'real-man' who then gets captured because he had no health to begin with, and dies from falling off a small mountain. Unless you are using cheats it is very hard to survive an entire battle on 1% of health or thereabout.

The third point I think actually proves and disproves my idea, About Rome, yes a general would never be able to fully control his army. But in mount and blade, you can. As in the first point, there is never a single man who disobeys your orders. If you have 1 archer and 100 infantry and order the 1 archer to move forward 100 paces until he dies in a sea of bandits, or whatever, he will. How does that make any sense?

Okay so after all of that, I myself don't mind that the idea of a strategy view would probably fail. It is after all, a mere suggestion.

The reason Mount&Blade isn't perfectly realistic is merely because it's impossible to make it so. The developers are limited by time, finances and the limits of computers and their own programming abilities. So saying that Mount&Blade isn't perfectly realistic is true. Saying that they don't strive for realism, not so sure about that.

I simply like the aspect of Mount&Blade that the control you have over your army is crude. It could be done better or differently, but it's fine the way it is, in my opinion. It gives a feel of realism if you're forced to go out into the battle if you want to have control over your troops.