Captain Mode
- Separation of some Perks and some Troop Stats for Captain Mode
- Ranged AI not being effective enough
- Cavalry AI not being effective enough
- AI abuses by player Captains
I think we had some progress here. Captain Leash and the "local superiority" concept have made dedicated kiting much less attractive to middling players.
I saw someone trying to solocav on Forest yesterday and it made me laugh. Couldn't get a positive KDR against Light Infantry and Light Archers.
I saw that 1.8.0 has some Aim-related AI improvements. I'm extremely anxious for those. Skirmishers will never be feasible in Captain until they can hit their target reliably. Since they aim high and miss high, they're only very effective against enemies that are running away from them, and there is never any reason to run away from Skirmishers.
Archers are in a very good place. With judicious facing commands they are very hard to AI-abuse, and can be effective if given a chance. The Heavy Infantry meta means that they often aren't as attractive since most players are guaranteed to have big shields but I don't think that is a problem with Archers at this point.
Cavalry AI is still unusable, unfortunately. Heavy Cavalry will struggle to engage an exposed and alone Light Archer unit in a straight melee. I can often win a melee as Axe Rangers against almost any heavy cavalry (Glaive Lancers will make it costly but still winnable). Since the driving desire of cavalry AI set to "Charge" is to run around the map and do big loops, the entire mob of light archers will be able to stall each cavalryman alone and just shiv him to death.
Since we have diverged Captain and other game mode stats now, it might be appropriate to look into increasing Charge damage across the board for heavy cavalry in Captain. The AI struggles to do anything on its own, and the most "correct" way to use them is to constantly reposition with F1 to form up for charges, and then place an F1 Hold Position well behind an enemy formation you want to be run over.
The AI also seems to struggle use lances correctly. Even on a huge open field like Forest, I can't really get them to consistently Couch Lance targets on a charge. I'm not sure if they are not setting the lances, or if they are just missing their targets.
Increasing Charge damage is honestly the only easy win I can think of with the current state of cavalry. They can usually run people over correctly at a gallop, it just doesn't do much.
For Light Cavalry, I'm not sure what the design intent was, but they are very largely unusable. All the wonky movement and engagement problems of H. Cav, none of the armor, so an AI's mistake is sometimes instantly fatal. It doesn't matter how "fast" their horses are, because the AI will not gallop without a gun to their head. For reasons that are unclear to me, Cavalry AI moves slower when their shield is held up, and they will decide to present their shields at seemingly random times. Nomads are sometimes playable with Imp Armor + Bow, but only because they can just stay out of combat until the final phases of the game, then dismount to charge with the infantry, or dismount earlier to use spears against enemy cavalry. Again, most Light Archers will dominate Light Cavalry in a straight melee, and gods forbid you run up on some heavy archers with your Raiders.
This is largely unfixable, I think. Light Cav AI does not have the crutch of the couched lance. It would require a crazy amount of AI work and playtesting to develop an AI decision model that accounts for the fact that Light Cav are the most maneuverable but weakest unit in the game correctly. AI would need to be able to judge reach and timing on their slashes while maneuvering the way a human player would, and the AI literally can't use the WW/SS commands that are pretty integral to moving your horse in close quarters. The Other game modes are fine as humans understand the inputs there. I'd honestly suggest we just
don't attempt to make the AI work for light cav play.
I'd rather suggest we just diverge Captain Light Cav perks, the way that we have diverged Medium Infantry perks for Shock classes. A
Mounted Infantry perk that circumvents the AI issue by optimizing the unit to be
dismounted for combat. Give them a trash horse, +2 troops, shorter/faster sidearms optimized for on foot combat, and better foot speed (just to be comparable to normal Infantry). A Mounted Infantry's horses would be for strategic positioning and engaging out-of-position enemies quickly. Battanian Mounted Warriors (its literally right there in the name) are the best candidate for this, but Raiders should be close behind. Historically this practice was common in Northern Europe and really throughout history in any culture that didn't have great war horses and riders.
Their job in Captain mode is still the same. Harass enemies to prevent charges to your exposed allies, and punish poor position by enemy light archers, they would just now have the option to dismount to fully commit to destroying an archer target or fully supporting an ally. Their troop counts and loadout still prevent them from being able to go toe-to-toe with Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, or Shock, but they could finish off Light Archers, get into a serious fight with Skirmishers, and with some assistance fight Heavy Archers. They are not going to be holding the center of a line anywhere or able to stand up to sustained missile fire, but they'd be dangerous instead of a complete write off and wouldn't make your team as angry that you picked them.