Why do battles take more than one round?

[Homer]

I understand that you can't fit all the men on one field. That's why you get reinforcements and new enemies. When does the computer decide to add new enemies or end the round? Confused about the rules here.

 

[Janus]

The enemy (and you and your allies) get up to 2 waves of reinforcements during a battle if their forces become depleted. Seems to me there are separate rounds in order to give you a chance to run from the battle after a round.

 

[Skyrage]

That should be removed IMO...I've always been somewhat annoyed by that as well...battles should flow in one go and not be made up of rounds, no matter the battle size limit that you have imposed.

 

[ThVaz]

If the only reason is to allow to player to retreat, this feature should be removed for good. You already can retreat at anytime you want just hitting TAB.

 

[-GandalfTheGrey]

But it doesn't always allow you to run from the enemy. The pre-battle screen sometimes forbids you escape.

 

[Janus]

Of course if you hit tab, you'll most likely lose troops if you have any.
This way it lets you "regroup" and decide whether to keep fighting or retreat without further losses. Makes perfect sense, and is actually true to how most battles are fought (regrouping and deciding whether to retreat for the time being or change strategies).

Personally, I think it's a nice feature. It gives you a break to examine your troop numbers and the enemy troop numbers, and re-evaluate the situation. <shrug>

EDIT: And it is true you can't always run at the starting battle screen, but after a round of battle you always (as far as I know) get a chance to leave.

Of course, if the enemy is faster, they can catch you again easily enough.

 

[chadz]

And, apart from that, it's a life-saver for archers with few arrows

 

[Leodan Flamelock]

I understand that you can't fit all the men on one field. That's why you get reinforcements and new enemies. When does the computer decide to add new enemies or end the round? Confused about the rules here.

I prefer playing with this. http://forums.taleworlds.com/viewtopic.php?t=3700&highlight=battle+size+changer Try it out.

 

[SimonForsman]

And, apart from that, it's a life-saver for archers with few arrows

and you get a chance to use the first aid skill (healing your heroes a little bit)

 

[Vachir]

I always figured it was to clear the corpses so you didn't get lag or "out of vertex shader memory" crashes after several waves of reinforcements when both sides have tons of guys. I'd love to hear a definitive answer though.

 

[Beelzebub]

The game explains it with the opening dialogue: You take a group of your men and set about on patrol of the area.

This doesn't make much sense when it's 15 v 15 but when you get up past 50 it does cuz these represent more RPGish conditions when your party is kind of spread out or patrolling in different areas. You'll get reinforcements from the other nearby groups, but the other guys might not make the initial melee, in which case both sides have a pause to regroup after one wins and clears the field.

 

[sapi]

If all the enemies on the field are dead, the round ends. That is, if thier reinforcements can't keep up with the rate you're killing them at.

 

[Tarrak]

I also like that you can flee, that was how it happened. If one side in teh skirmish found itself to be much weaker it would retreat. Sometimes the other side caught them sometimes they didn't.

Theo nly thing that lacks is the enemy party doing the same. It is unfair that I can flee from a losing battle but those river pirates or bandits can't when they obviously are losing badly.

 

[graphia]

If all the enemies on the field are dead, the round ends. That is, if thier reinforcements can't keep up with the rate you're killing them at.

Exactly right. If you want to have battle all in one go, kill the enemy slowly. If you want a chance to regroup and collect your missiles then you have to kill all enemies on the field before the next wave arrives. It makes sense to me in terms of gameplay - this way you don't have to stand around for a few minutes waiting for the next lot of enemies to arrive. It might not be the most realistic but it makes sense in the context of the game.

If it were suggested that reinforcements arrive faster to eliminate the waiting around then I'd reply that it gives the enemy an unfair advantage after you've done all the hard work

 

[Eternal Champion]

It is unfair that I can flee from a losing battle but those river pirates or bandits can't when they obviously are losing badly.

They are mostly on foot and most of the time you just ran them down. Where are they going to go? Might as well fight to the death as there is no escape anyway and a couple lucky shots on you and they might win the battle.

 

[Kelpo]

It is unfair that I can flee from a losing battle but those river pirates or bandits can't when they obviously are losing badly.

They are mostly on foot and most of the time you just ran them down. Where are they going to go? Might as well fight to the death as there is no escape anyway and a couple lucky shots on you and they might win the battle.

You don't think that rationally when fighting for your life. Anyways, morale is supposedly on its way.

 

[piln]

Well, I like the round-by-round structure, I like the feeling of "regrouping" and resuming the attack. It would be nice if the between-rounds information was delivered in something more than a screen of text, in the final game - say, a game-engine view of soldiers rearming, administering first aid, etc. I'd also like to see my army total at the top, as well as troop subtotals, so I can understand at a glance the number of losses from the last round.

Also, with one of my characters, I play hit-and-run tactics against tough enemy forces - so the ability to break off and resume combat as I see fit is both well-suited to this style of play, and realistic for an agile and cunning character.

The alternative to rounds doesn't sound good to me - you'd either have to have all the combatants present at once (which is obviously not an option for anyone but top-end PC owners) or drip-feed all of them, as reinforcements, into a single, unbroken battle. That could be tiresome for large forces, and I think it would necessitate a rethink of how ammo is handled in M&B.

But I do like the idea of enemies attempting to retreat from battle - on various different scales. I mean, even within the battlefield - does the enemy AI ever attempt to run away? I've never seen it. It would be cool if a terrified enemy started to make for the edge of the battle map - and if they managed to escape, to then attempt to break from the combat entirely and flee on the world map. We already see them doing this, but only before they're engaged in combat. Here's an interesting idea - doesn't a group with fewer units move more quickly? So, if you chase a fleeing group on the world map, and catch them, and then they were able to retreat and flee again - after you'd eliminated 75% of their number - wouldn't it be possible that they could then outrun you?

Which brings me onto another, minor thing I would like to see (not really important, but it'd be nice). If you're chasing a faster enemy, you can ditch your prisoners and maybe even some of your own men to gain a bit of speed. I'd also like to see the ability to ditch cargo for the same reason. As far as I can see, there's no option to simply 'drop' items from inventory. I could be wrong about that.

 

[Tarrak]

It is unfair that I can flee from a losing battle but those river pirates or bandits can't when they obviously are losing badly.

They are mostly on foot and most of the time you just ran them down. Where are they going to go? Might as well fight to the death as there is no escape anyway and a couple lucky shots on you and they might win the battle.

Yes, but you can flee even if you are up against Black Khergits on foot. I have in fact managed to reach towns just in time after sacrificing some troops.

Of course the pirates haev no town to flee to, but if they are lucky some other party will come between them and me.

 

[Harlequin_]

i think itr would complicate things too much to have a system of not being able to fleee from a faster enemy, or people running away from you in a battle. much better when your enemy stays where you want them

 

[TheSlightFeelingOfRegret]

When two AI parties are fighting one side will quite often attempt to flee. I think it wouldn't be too hard to implement a system that enables your enemy to run away.

Something like in the Total War games where you'd get a message "The Enemy is fleeing the field" and your enemy would try and run to the edge of the map to end the battle. Of course, while they were doing that you could chase them down and capture some more people.