Shield walls and choke points in Captain mode.

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I just discovered that a small but highly armoured troop cannot hold a choke point for more than 7 seconds against numerically superior forces.

I thought I could easily buy time for my buddies to circle around and attack their rear, but instead the enemy quickly wrecked me, then turned around and wrecked the rest of my team.

I have heard rumours something about morale and charging and momentum, but that seems kind of silly. Having superior numbers should only be effective when you can flank someone. Face to face battles against a shield wall should take a long time to break through, and flanking and/or attacking from behind should be the game changer.

But I am new and not that smart, so maybe I'm missing something.
 
Shield wall is a very bad formation once the meele begins. Your units will just stand around when there is no enemy in range causing the following: Enemies with more range just can hit them free, When one unit has no enemy in front it just waits for another instead of helping another unit out. I suggest using line formation and charge even in choke points. If your units push to far pull them back a bit and then charge again.
 
Were your troops in shield wall mode? Did an enemy get past and start hacking at their backs?

That's usually what breaks the formation, if they are not in shield wall they will charge forward relentlessly. If they are in shield wall they will pay no attention to whats behind them and if an enemy with a 2 hander gets behind them he'll make short work of them.
 
Nope, I was just patiently waiting in an alley with legionaries staring at the enemy until they charged (I forget what they had). Once I realized they had broken through (in about 2.5 seconds) I ordered the charge, but I was far too late.
 
Try giving the order to fall back when they get charged in shieldwall, i've seen it actually cause them to kill the attackers as they miss their swings

That being said though for some reason Sturgian's shield infantry seem to do the best in all scenarios.
 
Although legionaries are pretty beef, some inf like berserkers will just cut right into them. If your opponent had their units equipped right it isn't unrealistic that they could break through the choke easily.
 
berserkers in real life would get smoked by a heavily equipped unit in a choke I think... right?
 
I think it could also be an issue with allied collision boxes being too small as the bots can basically get really compact and stand inside of each other.
 
Realistically you'd probably have polearms and shield or armor dominate unlike in game where to make gameplay more interesting 1h swords, axes and maces are actually better weapons against infantry than spears.
 
I think it's quite hit and miss, I've seen units hold really well in those situations, and lose at most 2 guys, however I've also experienced the same as the OP in the same situation. Seems dependent on which units are going up against each other and if their commander fancies getting round the back
 
If you are using shield units and are up against shock troops they will break through. It's literally their job to beat shield infantry in this game.
 
I think it could also be an issue with allied collision boxes being too small as the bots can basically get really compact and stand inside of each other.
I think this is it. The whole idea of a choke point is that numbers don't matter, but if they can fit two men in the space of one, a shield wall where your men are evenly spaced would be a major disadvantage. I guess this is why it was suggested that ordering a charge is best, because that way at least your men are doubling up on spaces too.
 
While in a shield wall formation your troops will be much more passive and focus more on defence than offence. They will try to exploit openings and attack back when they can, but if they are outnumbered I doubt there are many opportunities for that.
 
The arrows are only a problem if you are using small shields. Otherwise the amount of dmg coming through is so minor that the archers will run out of ammo before they did considerable dmg.

And yes the units in shield wall are passive to an extend where they sometimes don't defend themselfs when outranged by polearms. so don't use it in a meele engagement.
 
Pretty sure you can hold a narrow-enough gap with just one unit.

If the gap isn't very small then you have to back up to avoid being flanked. You can still distract multiple people this way.
 
There aren't really any gaps narrow enough to comfortably hold as a solo infantry unit on the maps you get in Captain mode. You can tank arrows pretty much indefinitely, but it is a little too easy for enemy infantry to charge into your formation like retards and rack up kills because your shield wall has the structural integrity of a house of cards.
 
While in a shield wall formation your troops will be much more passive and focus more on defence than offence. They will try to exploit openings and attack back when they can, but if they are outnumbered I doubt there are many opportunities for that.

That AI behavior you're talking about should honestly be questioned internally by the AI team. Why is "more passive" and "defensive" behavior in shield wall mode? Instead of limiting the agent's aggressiveness why don't you limit the agent's mobility (let it go to walk mode like when we press Capslock)? Why do you deliberately limit my playable experience if I want to position spear or pikelike units without shields in shieldwall formation conditioning the ai to a passive and less aggressive behavior?


Let me choose, to get right and to fail. Indeed I'll worry about rotating the formation if it's being flanked or positioning it correctly if I'm receiving enemy fire. I honestly don't understand why you castrate Ai in this way; the best defense is a good offense.


In defensive (theoretically static) formations like the square or the circle, I'm fine with this kind of limitation of the bot's "aggressiveness". However, the same aggressiveness of the agents has to be considered equally in line, shield wall and wedge formations.

(*) And all this can also be extrapolated to the SP.
 
That AI behavior you're talking about should honestly be questioned internally by the AI team. Why is "more passive" and "defensive" behavior in shield wall mode? Instead of limiting the agent's aggressiveness why don't you limit the agent's mobility (let it go to walk mode like when we press Capslock)? Why do you deliberately limit my playable experience if I want to position spear or pikelike units without shields in shieldwall formation conditioning the ai to a passive and less aggressive behavior?


Let me choose, to get right and to fail. Indeed I'll worry about rotating the formation if it's being flanked or positioning it correctly if I'm receiving enemy fire. I honestly don't understand why you castrate Ai in this way; the best defense is a good offense.


In defensive (theoretically static) formations like the square or the circle, I'm fine with this kind of limitation of the bot's "aggressiveness". However, the same aggressiveness of the agents has to be considered equally in line, shield wall and wedge formations.

(*) And all this can also be extrapolated to the SP.

The formation you're looking for is line. Shield wall is there to tell the ai to defend itself from arrows mostly.
 
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