The reinforcements system has gradually changed; let's talk about it

[Big J Money]

Sometimes a patch will come out, and there are changes that take the spotlight; other things become ignored or forgotten.  One thing that has been changing as the game progresses is the way reinforcements work, and the pace of battles.  I have to say I like the old way better, but that may be simply because I thought I knew how it worked.

How I recall reinforcements used to work: It used to be that when you got into a fight, the sides would be even unless someone had a tactical advantage.  Even if it was 20 vs 50, you woud only fight like 8 vs 8, but the other side would have a boatload of reinforcements.  The other difference was that the battle never went back to the "staging screen".  When it was time for your reinforcements to arrive, they would.  When it was time for the enemy's to come, they would.

How it works now: First of all, it seems that the battles are scaled, regardless if one side has tactical advantage or not.  a Fight of 8 vs 5 will not be a 5 vs 5 fight.  It will probably be like 6 or 7 vs 5.  How this is calculated, I have no idea.  Also, I notice that in large battles, sometimes my reinforcements never show up!  This usually happens when I am facing a larger enemy force.  I have to press Tab to get to the staging screen, and then attack them again.  Also, sometimes when I kill all the enemies on the field, instead of new enemies arriving, the game takes me to the staging screen and I have to start all over!  This is the only element I don't like at all.  I liked how it used to feel like one long, drawn out battle.  Now it feels like I'm fighting a lot of mini-battles.  It's not as fun when that screen pops up and you have to start over again.

But that's just me.  Any of you guys who have been around since at least .623 remember this?  Am I a little off in my recollections?

=$= Big J Money =$=

 

[Sir Saladin]

Jesus, you must be a rocket scientist or a molecular biologist. How do you even notice things like that? I'm not making fun I'm just stunned.

 

[Despereaux]

Ya well

hes got a point

ive never seen .623, but im annoyed too by the constant popping-upping of that status screen

mostly cause i have to wait fer it to load fer a bit again and because it gets me out of my "berserk" mode

 

[Ingolifs]

I don't mind with thee current system because I use a battle size of 100. Which means only the largest (>200) parties cause me to go to the seond battle stage.

 

[Despereaux]

huh a mod right?

i kinda gave up on those cause they started p*ssing me off

 

[Ingolifs]

It's a battle size changer mod, go look for it in mod discussion.  It makes the game much more awesome.

Your computer needs to be fairly beefy to run the game at that battle size though.

 

[Despereaux]

well

if its bran and beef i need for my comp, than i think im off the list

mostly because...i have  a resident virus in here

and the only way to get rid of it is to get a $50 program off of microsoft

which is like completely messed up

 

[Ingolifs]

There are other free antivirus softwares you can download free off the net. Try Grisoft's AVG antivirus. It's the one I use.

 

[Despereaux]

huh problem is i already have some

i got windows and norton and spybot and ad-aware

but windows says those cant detect it cause its in the registry or something like that

 

[Grocat]

As far as I can tell, this is how the battle system works (Just observations):  Whichever group has the advantage (depending on how much said advantage is) will have at least a few more troops than the other group, for instance. Battle Size 40 (tactical advantage: 2)  24 vs. 16.  Reinforcements seem to appear everytime the opposing group is dropped down to a small portion of its original total (1/3?).  There are then up to two/three(I can't remember) waves of reinforcements.  Once the last wave has come and all of them are defeated, the battle stops, at which point if there are more enemy combatants the status screen will reappear and give the option of retreat or fight again.

-Grocat the Socratic Boat Dweller

 

[Big J Money]

Yeah, why does it do this?  Why not just keep sending reinforcements until the battle is over?  I wonder if it is a technical issue, or there is some kind of gameplay purpose behind it.  Otherwise, it annoys the crap out of me, because my PC can't handle anything more than battle size of 32.  I can't imagine what it must be like for people who are stuck back in 14 land.  I would like a return of the old "fight until it's over" method.

=$= Big J Money =$=

 

[thesneakster]

well, i also, don't like how it works now. One long battle would be cool, and i don't see how the last five people would wait to attack.....

 

[DaLagga]

I think the current system could use some work...but is likely there for a purpose.  For one thing, corpses do eat up cpu, of course you could just have them disappear over time...  Also, when the battle enters a new phase, your troops, yourself, and your horse all get either full hp or a portion of their hp back.  Thats what the first aid skill is for to begin with.  It also helps to emphasize the tactics skill.  My point is, i think it should be one long continuous fight as well, but it's the way it is for a reason and many elements would have to be altered to keep the game balanced.  I'd also like to point out that tactics should not just give you a blanketed 1 extra troop every two levels.  It should be entirely dependent on your battle size.  Otherwise, on very large battle size settings (i usually play at 80-100) the usefulness of tactics is diminished because those extra troops on the field allowed by a tactics of 10 for instance have a much smaller impact in a 100v100 (adding 5% to your fielded force) than they would have in a 20v20 (where it adds 25% to your fielded force).  Tactics effect on your tactical advantage should scale according to your battle size.

 

[Volkier]

Despe - just do a full format and re-install windows.. problem solved :

 

[Goofy]

Your memorey really must be much better than mine 0.632 was my first version but I cannot recall how it was back then. Actually I am not that unhappy with the current system. The flipping back to the attack screen could be understood as some form of regrouping. However, it would be nice ifyour reinforcements would arrive a bit earlier and not when your force has been decimated to a handfull of men. The tactic skill could play a role here, e.g. your reinforcements do come more often and earlier when you have a better skill in porder to keep the number of your men on the level when the battle started. Furthermore it would be cool too choose which units you want to start with and which should come in as a reserve. Well, there has been already lots of discussions about this topic...

 

[Sabin Stargem]

I would like to have the map and bodies carry over for each phase of the battle.  The reason for that is so that I can enjoy a huge battlefield with literarally hundreds of corpses lying about.  While the Battlesizer does provide this, I unfortunately have to wait about twenty minutes since I have to wait for the battle to die down. (all of the moving AIs and such suck up the CPU.)  I think the current system is okay, but it should be expanded upon.

EXAMPLE:  When a 'phase' occurs, you could reassign your reinforcement compositions, indicate from which edge of the map they come from, have the choice to pick a different randomized map, and perhaps conduct troop upgrades between battles.  Perhaps 'Item Management' could dictate whether your troops shields and arrows are replaced for the next phase, making soldiers weaker on the field.

 

[phbbbt107]

huh problem is i already have some

i got windows and norton and spybot and ad-aware

but windows says those cant detect it cause its in the registry or something like that

Offtopic:
Windows doesn't have it's own antivirus (i think), so you probably have windows anti-spyware. Spybot and ad-aware are also anti spyware and won't do @#$% if you have a virus. Try running norton antivirus and scan your computer. Your AV may also be out of date, so try updating. f yo ucan't update it, just use AVG fre edition or something.

 

[Manitas]

Okay, back on topic.

You get reinforcements whenever mission timer exceeds 10 seconds, and alive troop count of either side goes below 3.

You get up to two waves of up to three soldiers each as reinforcements - regardless of anything. (well, that's a bit different if you join a battle in progress, 1 guy comes from your party, and 2 from an allied party).


Coincidently, I am working on reinforcement system this weekend. I'm trying to make it so ammount of reinforcements is proportional to battling party sizes. If everything goes well I'm planning a micro subrelease before this thursday.

 

[Despereaux]

From whenever i remember
I never got any reinforcements
Like when my guys all died and i stll had like 30 knights left over, none of em came in
Not that im complaining or anything, cause i still take the enemy out

 

[Ahadhran]

I've noticed that with the enemies sometimes reinforcements spawn as soon as I kill the first guy or sometimes a late as the last man standing, almost as if there is a specific soldier marked with the horn of reinforcements that he doesn't blow till he's lying bloody and dying on the field...