[Submod - WIP] Tactical Troop Trees

[Michiko]

Well it still follows your battle size of course. And the game still causes them to regroup after several waves. I just felt it was important to have big numbers so that you need to keep checking when the reinforcements arrive, so you can reform your lines. If you don't reform the lines your men that are out of formation are likely to get killed when the reinforcements showed up.

I quite hate how sieges are easy(or damn hard, depending on the location) in Warband/Floris.

Yeah this has been my experience too. Even with my challenge of conquering Calradia with tier 4 troops and lower, after a while you figure out which troops are best for the job and sieges become too automatic. Tier 4 archers, especially merc crossbowmen, are really effective in sieges still, and siege defense is too easy if you have a strong enough shield wall and enough archers. I don't like that we can fend off 1800 troops with only 200 men in the garrison. Without reinforcement, a castle of 1,500 men + 500 militia should fall to a force of 10,000 besiegers even if the player is helping.

 

[dimstog]

I quite hate how sieges are easy(or damn hard, depending on the location) in Warband/Floris.

Yeah this has been my experience too. Even with my challenge of conquering Calradia with tier 4 troops and lower, after a while you figure out which troops are best for the job and sieges become too automatic. Tier 4 archers, especially merc crossbowmen, are really effective in sieges still, and siege defense is too easy if you have a strong enough shield wall and enough archers. I don't like that we can fend off 1800 troops with only 200 men in the garrison. Without reinforcement, a castle of 1,500 men + 500 militia should fall to a force of 10,000 besiegers even if the player is helping.

The thing is that sieges are not easy (or hard) because of the number of troops, but because of the siege mechanics and the engine limitations and the reinforcement mechanic and the scenes themselves.

Because of that, I don't think tinkering with the amount of troops would "fix" anything when it comes to sieges. If the player can hold off 1000 men with 200 men, then, by analogy they should be able to hold 10.000 men with a 1.000 - keeping the 1 to 5 ratio that is.

I don't know how it would affect autocalc - I have no idea how that works. But the AI is so horrible when dealing with the scenes and the pathing in sieges. And while that is a problem for the player as well (I cringe every time I have to deal with defending Dhirim), they can work around it, while the AI doesn't stand a chance, since all it can do is just charge everyone.

I doubt that the problem would be solved even if someone took the time to recreate all the castle scenes with wider ramparts, intelligent spawn points, etc etc. As long as the player can choose when to hold position with their archers and hold or charge with the infantry/cavalry, the AI will be at a distinct disadvantage.

Nothing to do with your mod Hanakoganei, just a random rant of mine 

 

[Michiko]

Haha true. The AI really does have a better chance of winning siege offenses now though since their troops are guaranteed to be useful. You won't see like 800 weak troops and 200 strong troops go up the ladder that your 150 strong archers and 50 strong infantry can easily dispatch. It'll be 1000 troops against 200 troops.

On a side note, just something to ponder on regarding sieges! There's this other mod I also play called Gekokujo that has very interesting sieges IMO. The mod itself is simple but the layout of the castles makes siege offense and defense very interesting due to having multiple gates that the siege attackers have to overcome. This was typical of Japanese castle design. Archery and guns really help siege defense, and even though you're basically sacrificing your troops that you station at the first few gates, they will deal heavy casualties on the enemy numbers before they are defeated. By the time the enemy makes it to the main courtyard (still surrounded by multiple layers of walls and towers), their numbers have been thinned quite a lot in most cases.

It was a real challenge for me to figure out how to minimize my losses (aside from having high levels of Surgery) when taking a castle. Because of the raw power of guns (like crossbows), even the low level troops were able to deal significant damage to my higher level troops.

That aspect of that mod is one of the things that made me think about numbers and positioning being more important than veterans. I'm not saying veterans are not important. But in Native and Floris, where we don't have guns (though we have crossbows and some people complain about those being "imbalanced"), we're so used to the idea that 75 of the "veteran" high-tier troops will always defeat 180 filler troops and 20 veterans, even with minimal tactics. In some cases especially with heavy cavalry, simply charging your troops is usually enough to overcome most enemies.

That may be true in real life, as veterans are also likely to have veteran-level tactics, discipline, etc., but it's also hard to really compare real life to this game, so I'm trying to make the best possible compromise. First of all, it's easier to make these so-called veterans in the game than in real life. Real life veterans (medieval era anyway) are warriors that have been warriors years and years, having been in many fights and the toughest of situations. In old warfare, elite troops like the Varangians, the knights, the so-called "Immortals", the samurai, etc., were counted more than veterans. This submod has elite troops, not veterans. Elite troops were often veterans, but their training is what makes them good, because many of them are trained in the arts of war from youth, unlike peasants who pick up their weapons only when called to do so (and usually reluctantly at that, such as the case of conscripts). You might've had maybe 100 samurai and 5,000 peasant warriors from their fiefs with rifles and spears, or something like that.

That's the kind of balance I'm going for in this game.

 

[dimstog]

I hate to take up your time from coding (hehe) but...

In Gekokujo, the only reason those ranged defending troops get some casualties is because there's no.... shields. Imagine a bulk of Nord I4-I5 storming those castles with no bottleneck in place And since there's no bottleneck for the attackers, the defenders are in an even bigger disadvantage since by the time their reinforcements spawn, it's them that they are bottlenecked. It is a beautifully designed mod with a lot of character, however the lack of shields (let alone the complete lack of tactics) is killing the mechanics for me tbh.

As for your submod, I think what you are saying about strong troops might indeed be a solution. In Floris, the truth is that once you field 200-300 T4-T6 troops, you are able to defeat any AI army, with a varying amount of casualties, and not just defending sieges.

Maybe closing the gap between T1 to T6 troops making the latter not that much better would indeed be helpful for the AI. It's not a matter of how difficult it is to obtain "veteran" troops, the player will always be able to choose their troops better than the AI and ultimately field a veteran heavy army. That tactic is enforced on the player partly because for the best part of the game the player is at a disadvantage. Meaning that they have to win battles with minimal losses since re-recruiting  is a much bigger tedium for the player than the AI. The AI can simply throw as many troops they like into the grinder, with no strategic or tactical plan in place, then retreat back in their castles, and get a new army in a few days. Since the AI practically uses no tactics, it doesn't care what kind of troops it gets. They don't even care since even when the player has established a kingdom, any AI faction, no matter how beat up they are, has more lords with more armies than the player. The player, doesn't have that "luxury". They need X inf, Y range, Z cav to make their tactics work and have low casualties... and there, the vicious cycle is complete.

In short, if you manage to liberate the player from that, and give them the possibility to go on fighting with what they have at the moment and not care that much about casualties and replenishing their army, your mod will make for some very interesting gameplay.

 

[Michiko]

I hate to take up your time from coding (hehe) but...

Don't worry! This is exactly why I keep updating this thread even if I haven't made too much progress with the submod yet. I love the discussions as it might bring out the potential issues. I love to hear what people think about the features and how they can be improved. If you've been following this since last year you'll notice a lot has changed. A lot of the changes came from ideas of other people.

In Gekokujo, the only reason those ranged defending troops get some casualties is because there's no.... shields.

Haha yeah. Actually that's true of this submod too, for the most part. It's a balancing factor for the Nords, who all have shields, allowing them to close with ranged enemies relatively safely. Other factions have shield troops too, but are usually not fielded in large amounts due to a difference of style or are not as good with them. Good example is the Rhodoks, who have pavises for their crossbowmen and some troops that use the little bucklers. The buckler troops are duelists and good at fighting against infantry but are not great at defending against archers as you can imagine. If you tell the crossbowmen to use the pavises as shields, then they can't use their crossbows. It's not necessarily a bad tactic, but as you can probably imagine the way I'm balancing this submod is that there are always side effects to your actions, so you have to choose what to do and when wisely.

My logic behind it is that in real life, the depictions of medieval peasant troops is that they're usually given just a spear or some other peasant weapon and no shield. Although logically anybody, even the poorest of the poor, could easily fashion a simple shield with wood and hide, their formations and usage most likely didn't require the shields, and might've been seen by their officers as being a hindrance in some cases. Due to the wide usage of pikemen and cavalry in medieval times (and this mod), having spearmen and other formations that are good at stopping those are even more important than shields.

Even if archery is a big deal in this submod as it was in real life, I'm confident with my early tests that aggressive usage of flanker troops can dispatch an archery line quite easily, quickly and far more effectively than staying still and using shields. It's also my tactic in Gekokujo--I use 2 spearman formations to run in formations against the opposite flanks of the enemy archer lines.

From my observations of the earliest version of this submod so far, the biggest killers in the game right now from my early test versions are really the standard infantry and the flanker units (even the non-cavalry flanker units like skirmish infantry, etc.). This is because the infantry can come in force against the enemy archers, and even if you take some casualties on the way there due to not having shields, their quick movement towards the enemy flank causes the enemy to turn one way or another, and therefore a pincer maneuver invariably devastates the enemy lines, unless they use the proper defensive formations. Working on this made me suddenly appreciate chess a lot more in fact haha. It's all about moves and counter moves.

It's not a matter of how difficult it is to obtain "veteran" troops, the player will always be able to choose their troops better than the AI and ultimately field a veteran heavy army.

Yeah lol. D: Hopefully my scripts to force AI lords to use certain types as well as my modifications to FormAI will help fix this. That's also another reason I got rid of veteran troops in general. So that the player and the AI are more on less on equal footing in terms of the troop types. It now only becomes a matter of how you use them.

In short, if you manage to liberate the player from that, and give them the possibility to go on fighting with what they have at the moment and not care that much about casualties and replenishing their army, your mod will make for some very interesting gameplay.

Yeah you seem to understand my logic for the officer system. This is one of the intentions. The original game design's intention was just as you said, which is to make it so that the player has a better chance of winning because he'll likely have smaller troop numbers as well as fewer lords and castles than the AI. The AI automatically gets troops even while they stay in towns, while the player has to go back and travel around villages and towns for weeks to replenish his troops. I found this way too repetitive and boring. Instead, I'm letting the officers handle that.

 

[Michiko]

Just an update, since it's been a while. Haven't really done much the past week because I've been busy with work and other things. Hoping to leave the country soon to go to Japan, where I'll get more work, and it's been very hectic.

... That said, no updates or new plans right now lol. I'll be using some of my free time to start adjusting the troops to the fit the current systems I have planned. I haven't designed the various militia/defense troops yet.

- edit: I'm rethinking the Ranger irregular troop type for the Swadians, and the irregulars for the other factions for that matter. Rangers are historically actually regular troops but not necessarily fighters in wars. They're supposed to be guarding the kingdom's forests from bandits and whatnot. I might make them the militia/defense troop instead and make another irregular troop type for the Swadians. However, because of how Swadia's troops are designed, with 2 kinds of archers, a light infantry type, 2 kinds of heavy infantry, and heavy cavalry, they're pretty well-rounded and I can't think of any particular troop to complement them.

I was originally thinking about removing irregulars from some factions, but I don't really want to do that because I think it's a fun mechanic.

Right now the irregulars are like this:

Swadia: ???
Vaegir: Hunter (archer that's decent at hand-to-hand combat)
Khergit: ??? (originally was conscripts from the Vaegirs and the Sarranids, but conscripts are forced to fight and therefore can not leave the army on their own)
Nord: Berserker
Rhodok: Militia (short spear + shield)
Sarranid: Desert Nomad (light cavalry with various weapons)
Player Faction: Scout (light cavalry + crossbow)

 

[Leifdin]

Swadia could have some Robin Hood outlawish styled archers.

 

[Michiko]

Haha yeah that was originally how I was designing the Rangers. However I don't want to use the name "Ranger" for an irregular troop. "Outlaw" sounds a little harsh. "Rogue" maybe?

 

[Leifdin]

I don't know, I think that outlaw would be fine, especially considering that people such as berserkers or vikings were basically bandits. So were many mercenaries. But you could do a political correctness joke there, giving them name such as... I don't know Nothing comes to my mind at the moment.

 

[Michiko]

Haha I'll keep thinking. "Rogue" is probably my best option. I want to make sure the player doesn't mistake them for common bandits from the names.

 

[dimstog]

Haha I'll keep thinking. "Rogue" is probably my best option. I want to make sure the player doesn't mistake them for common bandits from the names.

Rogue is too defined from fantasy settings I think. How about "highwaymen", "road agents", "renegades", "autonomists" or... "insurgents"  . I also like "blackguard" very much, but I don't think that many people would get the "rogue" feeling from it. "outcasts" maybe ? Or "rogue agents" if you are set on "rogue".

 

[Leifdin]

What about "autonomous toll(or tax) collectors"? Or "Not Bandits".

 

[Michiko]

rofl

Outcast sounds too dramatic. Like they were shunned by society or something. I want it to be like these are guys who didn't want to be part of the regular army with all that discipline training, but they know how to fight particularly with bows, swords and spears, so a cunning warlord might want to use them for certain things like village raids or other guerrilla tactics.

 

[dimstog]

"Blackguard" then for sure.

Quoted For Truth:
- Whoa, those guys just mopped the floor with that Rhodok infantry line. Who ARE they sergeant ?
- Don't you know them son ? They are Lord Demuder's Blackguard.

 

[Michiko]

So it's a choice between Notbandits or Blackguard then. Notbandits sounds like fun though.

- edit:
Quick update. Still working on it, but each faction will now have different systems for their Irregular troops and Militia (Defenders). I've decided to do it this way because each faction has its own style of recruitment. For the most part it will still be the same as previously announced, but here are the main differences:

Khergit Khanate
There are no such things as irregular troops for the Khergits. All Khergits are supposed to be nomadic warriors and hunters and their able-bodied men all join the regular army. Their Militia are the women in addition to the men stationed at garrisons. Their "irregular troops" are conscripts from the Vaegirs and Sarranids, the able-bodied men of territories that the Khergits captured.

Khergit officers can be recruited from villages, castles and towns. The conscripts can not be recruited from villages. To recruit conscripts, you need to talk to an officer in a Khergit castle or town (for now it's just an interface thing in the castle and town menu--no actual NPC), and he'll transfer some conscripts into your party. There are a limited number of conscripts per town and castle, so you generally can't recruit as many of them as you can with the irregulars of the other factions. However, unlike the other irregular trops they also will never leave your army even if you don't get into combat for a while and never pay them, but they will desert your army if you don't have enough food.

Kingdom of the Nords
Nord Militia can be recruited via a militia officer and can be taken into war, unlike most other militia. However, they will not automatically show up at towns to help defend. You need to station their officers in the garrison as with the other troops. AI-lord owned towns and castles will still try to recruit their own officers based on the wealth of the owner and region however, while the ones owned by players need to be manually filled.

Nord irregulars are Berserkers, not particularly prized for their discipline despite their skill in combat. They're somewhat more difficult to maintain than most other irregulars. Not getting in a big battle for more than a week will cause many of them to leave until you get into a difficult battle (defined by the enemy numbers being roughly equal to or greater than the number of Berserkers in your army).

Rhodok Republic
Rhodok irregulars are also militia and recruitable via a militia sergeant. These are special militia units that are not the same units that show up to defend a town or village, particularly trained for small offensive maneuvers and support (crossbowmen and fast-moving spearmen). These can be stationed at garrisons but are not particularly effective for siege defense due to not having shields and the spears being too long for siege combat.


Other than that, the militia and irregulars for the other factions behave as expected. Militia will show up to defend a town and a village, irregulars are recruitable from villages for free but require you to get into at least one battle where the enemy is at least 1/3 of the number of irregulars per week for their wages or else they will leave.

Also, take note that you can't cheat and stuff regular troops into garrisons without officers. The scripts will still check the balance of officers per regular troop even in garrisons (and fill them up as necessary as well), so if you try to put your regulars into a garrison and have your officer in your party fill your party back up, the regulars in the garrison that have no officer will also abandon the garrison. You pay full wages even for garrisoned officers, but mercenaries will take half wages.

 

[zduhach]

Hanakoganei, may I suggest term "Hajduk" for Vaegir irregulars? As Vaegirs are based on Slavic culture, then I think that "Hajduk" would fit it well. Little historical info: Hajduks were outlaws and highwaymen in the Balkans, but as they fought against Otoman rule they were perceived by slavic population as freedom fighters. They were robbing caravans, small millitary units, and rich individuals in time of peace, but in time of war, they joined regular armies of enemies of Otoman empire or lead rebelled peasents and formed core of rebell armies of christian people of Balkan. Also, they are many times mentioned serving in Hungarian or Polish armies as light guerilla infantry against Turks and Tatars.

 

[Michiko]

Thanks for that info! I didn't know what they were called but my current Vaegir irregulars are supposed to be something like what you describe. I called them "Hunter" because I wanted it to be somewhat generic and so that people will know that they're good at various kinds of combat, from archery to spears, etc. I'll just rename them into Hajduks then.

 

[zduhach]

No problem, I am really looking forward your submod as it have a lot of interesting ideas. I know that most modders dont like to hear this, but I will take my chance here: I dont have modding knowledge but if you need help with terminology or some ideas especially regarding Vaegirs, I could help. I am Serb and speak both Russian and Ukrainian and like to read a lot about millitary history of slavic countries. For start, I would like to suggest some corrections about Vaegir units names, but it is up to you to decide.

 

[Michiko]

That kind of information is exactly what I'm looking for really. I don't know too much about the Russian military during medieval times.

I want your input on this:

隐藏: Grand Principality of the Vaegirs

My intention to make the Vaegirs feel different from other factions is to give them well-trained and well-equipped troops all around, something that no other faction has (it's usually one or the other, or neither). Instead of recruiting from the peasantry like the Swadians or forcing all their able-bodied men into combat like the Khergits, these guys have actual full-time soldiers and personal retinue guards in addition to the irregulars. Because of the various fighting styles of the three factions around them, the Vaegirs also adapt a variety of combat styles, making them one of the most balanced factions in the submod, but also making them not really specialists at anything.

Their somewhat smaller population is both for balance (because 1 professional Vaegir soldier is usually better than 1 Swadian or Khergit soldier) and due to the fact that the majority of the Vaegir landscape seems to be frozen wasteland, and it makes sense for the population to be generally only around the big cities and important village areas.

Right now the Vaegir troop tree is like this. Druzhina are the officers and there are two types: one recruits "light" troops that focus on mobility while the other recruits "heavy" troops, obviously armored and prefer positioning for infantry and lancer charges for cavalry.

The troops recruited by the Light Druzhina can switch roles into each other. They are Spearmen (somewhat long spears good for anti-infantry charges and defending against cavalry), Light Lancers (unarmored horses but the riders are in lamellar, they use throwable spears and light lances) and Horse Archers (unarmored horses, bows, somewhat similar to the Khergits).

The troops recruited by the Heavy Druzhina can also switch roles into each other. They are the Heavy Crossbowman (actually their crossbows are not as heavy as the crossbows of the Rhodoks, but they are wearing armor, have kite shields and are very good at hand-to-hand combat) and the Heavy Lancer (armored horse, mail armor and long lances).

I based these troop types on depictions, toys and paintings of the Kievan Rus and early Byzantine troop types. It also makes sense from a balance standpoint because:

* Heavy Crossbowmen can help stop Nord shield walls due to the crossbows being able to penetrate shields sometimes.
* Heavy Lancers can crash through archer and light infantry lines, dissuading the Swadians and Nords from setting up.
* Spearmen can crash through infantry formations or help protect against cavalry, useful especially against the Swadians and to a lesser extent against the Khergits.
* Light Lancers have good mobility, making them good candidates for chasing down the Khergit skirmishers.
* Horse Archers are on-par with Khergit skirmishers, making them useful for similar tactics if deployed in high numbers.

Does that sound anything at all like how the ancient people from those regions would've fought? Also take into account the troop design of the factions surrounding the Vaegirs and that I took the liberty of adapting their troops to counter.

I'm open to suggestions. I find troop design and balance to be quite fun so I don't mind changing everything if necessary.

For start, I would like to suggest some corrections about Vaegir units names, but it is up to you to decide.

Regarding this, I'm generally trying to avoid using cultural names altogether except for some iconic terms, just to avoid faction favoritism. Otherwise, the names of the troops are descriptive of their role instead of their culture. You'll see a lot of "Spearman" or "Halberdier" or "Skirmisher".

The officers are usually named after their tier instead of going for historical accuracy. This is for simplicity so that the player can easily remember which officers are which. A Lieutenant recruits Sergeants, who recruits the regular troops. If you have too many Lieutenants, you'll start needing Captains. This is regardless of whether the faction actually used such terminology in history, again just for simplicity's sake (I don't want to confuse people with the names of the military officers and units for the Khergits and Sarranids, for example).

So yeah, generally each faction uses generic troop names. The exceptions are these:
Swadia = Knight
Vaegir = Druzhinnik
Nord = Housecarl
Sarranid = Knight*, Assassin**

隐藏: *

The medieval Arabic and Persian cultures practiced their own kind of knighthood called Furusiyya, which is similar to the knightly practice of the European countries or the Samurai of Japan. It involved mostly training with and care for the horse, archery, swordsmanship and the use of the lance. Instead of using the name "Faris", I decided to go with Knight, which is essentially the same thing (they translate into each other).

隐藏: **

The Assassins were actually an army formed out of a religious sect. While they performed "assassinations", which is actually public killing of important enemy targets as opposed to the traditional idea of stealth killing (the stealth is actually in the approach instead of the killing), they were neither the inventors of this act nor the only ones doing such things during the period. Despite the legend of the assassinations giving them popularity due to their public nature, the Assassins were actually more historically important at least for me for being some of the main defenders against the Mongols, who wiped out all of the Assassins eventually in their conquest of the region. For this reason, I felt it was important to include the Assassins in the submod. It is known that Assassins also practiced Furusiyya, therefore making them horsemen and archers as well as swordsmen and lancers.

To give an example of how generic it really looks, let's look at the Rhodok troop tree. These are the actual names of the officers and troops as you would see them in your party window:

隐藏: Rhodok Republic Troop Tree

Town and Village Defender
Militia Guard

Irregular
Militia Captain:
4 Militia Lieutenants (every 4 Lieutenants requires 1 Captain)
Militia Lieutenant:
4 Militia Sergeants (every 4 Sergeants requires 1 Lieutenant)

Militia Sergeant:
8-12 Militia Fighter (If the number drops below 8, the game will try to recruit some more until it's between 8 and 12. If the number goes above 12, the game will cause some of them to abandon your party until it's between 8 and 12.)

Regular
Captain:
4 Lieutenants

Heavy Infantry Lieutenant:
4 Mountain Sergeant

Light Infantry Lieutenant:
4 Lowland Sergeant

Mountain Sergeant: (8-12 of the following interchangeable troops)
Mountain Halberdier
Mountain Spearman

Lowland Sergeant (8-12 of the following interchangeable troops)
Lowland Crossbowman
Lowland Pikeman

As you can see the names of the troops are usually descriptive of their weapon or role. Pikeman is differentiated from Spearman because the Pikeman is usually somebody with a long pike while a Spearman can have either a short spear or a long spear, or both in some cases as well as throwing spears. In some cases like here and with the Khergits, there are variant troops with names describing their region. This is both to add diversity to the faction and also to promote splitting the infantry and other troop formations as necessary. For example, with the Rhodoks, you can deploy the Spearmen and Pikemen separately, with one acting as the defenders for the Crossbowmen while the other is used more offensively (I recommend the Lowland Pikemen for defense and the Mountain Spearmen for aggressive offensive tactics alongside the Mountain Halberdiers).

The Khergits also have something similar, with both Horde Skirmishers and Lancers and Ilkhan Skirmishers and Lancers, the Horde being those coming from the homeland of the Khergits while the Ilkhan coming from the western territories they conquered (historically the area around Persia IRL, but in Warband it's the eastern sections of Calradia northeast of the Sarranian Deserts and westward towards the area south of Dhirim). The reason for this is so that the player can deploy 2 (or 4 with the Split Troops function of PBOD) Skirmisher lines in different areas, or drive 2 (or 4) cavalry wedges into the enemy line simultaneously.

 

[Leifdin]

Oh, I'm already scared of those Vaegirs...Well, difficulty breeds fun!