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Thread: french castle archers bug

  1. #1

    Default french castle archers bug

    Don't know if this has already been posted but in french castles (northern european i guess) there is no good place to put your archers on the walls. It's hard to get them on the walls period but even when I do they just stand there and don't fire a thing. Occasionally I can position them to where 3 or 4 have a good line of sight but that's it. The only thing I can think of is if Darthmod modifies the arrow trajectories to be too low, they can't shoot over the walls correctly (In vanilla they'd just shoot at a real high angle). This is an extremely frustrating bug because it is a huge disadvantage to the French and other European factions with the same castle design. You can see it to a lesser extent when you order your archers to shoot at a ram attacking a wooden-walled settlement- if the archers are on the walls right next to the gate most of them will refuse to shoot at it, unless they are further down the wall away from the gate.

  2. #2

    Default Re: french castle archers bug

    Sorry but this is a CA bug and I will not make all archers rudiculous again to fix this.
    Watch how projectiles are so realistic now.

  3. #3

    Default Re: french castle archers bug

    What does CA mean? I can see how projectiles are more realistic in open field combat now but the majority of battles take place around sieges and if archers can't defend walls properly doesn't that kinda defeat their purpose? Just feel it needs to be addressed in someway, it takes away one the biggest advantages of having a castle- being able to fire at your enemies from above in a protected position.

  4. #4
    Tudor's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: french castle archers bug

    First of all, yes, archers and crossbowmen do have problems because of the walls design. Still, your example with the ram is not exactly valid. If you had ever visited a real castle of the era, you would have noticed that most walls do have a blind spot as far as archery is concerned. Archers can't shoot right down from the wall because in order to do so, they would have to lean over the crenelations and totally expose themselves to attacking missile troops. It did happen in desperate situations, but you can't expect CA to include that kind of rare animation in their original product, can you?

    Defenders also occasionally pried stone chinks from the walls themselves, and this is obviously not represented in any game. In reality, those blind spots would have been covered by other mechanisms, such as murder holes or shooting galleries. Unfortunately, MTW2 does not implement such mechanisms.

    One solution would be to modify the design of the walls themselves (provided that the physics behind the system are accurate enough) and provide crenelations with a downward slope at their base. This should help defenders shoot more effectively, and I've actually seen such a design implemented in real fortifications. But 3D modeling is not Darth's area of expertise.

  5. #5

    Default Re: french castle archers bug

    Right obviously there is some tiny blindspot in real life walls but it is nowhere close to the one currently in the mod. I have seen a real life castle of the era and if you want to get all technical real life archers could always just shoot at a very high angle to hit things closer to them without exposing themselves and most walls had an overhang just for the purpose of hitting things beneath them. The walls cannot be modded as far as I know so we have to deal only with archers' trajectories, and right now it is just ridiculously stupid. Archers get off maybe one or two volleys before everyone's too close and then they are useless....that's not how real life sieges worked. I realize darth is trying to create realistic battles but I think the realism of archers actually playing a role in sieges outweighs the realism of absolutely perfect arrow mechanics. No need to get all defense and high and mighty on me, I'm just letting you know what I noticed and what actually stopped me from playing the mod!

  6. #6
    Tudor's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: french castle archers bug

    Quote Originally Posted by skyyaa View Post
    Right obviously there is some tiny blindspot in real life walls but it is nowhere close to the one currently in the mod. I have seen a real life castle of the era and if you want to get all technical real life archers could always just shoot at a very high angle to hit things closer to them without exposing themselves
    Firing at a very high angle would reduce accuracy to almost zero, and it doesn't work for crossbows. In the end it's crossbowmen that are a pain in Darthmod sieges. They're supposed to be in their element defending in a siege, but right now they're nigh useless.

    Quote Originally Posted by skyyaa View Post
    and most walls had an overhang just for the purpose of hitting things beneath them.
    That's what I meant with murder holes and shooting galleries. A moat would also do wonders to keep ennemies out of the blind spot for longer. But unfortunately, these things aren't really implemented. That's why I suggested that fixing the fortification designs would lead to a more accurate and satisfying result than allowing for ridiculous vanilla archery.

    Quote Originally Posted by skyyaa View Post
    The walls cannot be modded as far as I know so we have to deal only with archers' trajectories,
    If that's true it's a real shame.

    Quote Originally Posted by skyyaa View Post
    Archers get off maybe one or two volleys before everyone's too close and then they are useless....that's not how real life sieges worked.
    I never argued on that one. Of course that's not how it worked. However, there is a problem with the fortifications designs in game. Even in reality, if all there is on the defending side is a straight courtain wall, with no ditch, no earthworks, no murder holes, no traps and no external galleries (i.e. MTW2 fortifications) it would all end up in a fast dash for the walls and a bunch of ladders and hooks being thrown at the walls, while as much cover fire as possible is provided from below. Defences would be swamped quite quickly and it would all boil down to the defenders' ability to push the ladders off the walls, killing the people climbing on them in the process (another mechanic not implemented in MTW2, btw). Unfortunately, the zillions of differences in real life forts that made sieges so varied can't be implemented in the game. Think the occasional wall that's too high to put a ladder on, or the odd design that leads you up a death alley covered by murderous crossfire once your ram is past the first gate.

    In fact, new castle designs would be a good subject for a mod in its own right, provided that it's possible to mod castles and that the AI would be at least moderately competent at using unknown defesive designs (which it definitely isn't).

    In the end, it's a good thing I'm not a sucker for missile troops anyway. Big axes, swords and maces are my cup of tea and you'd be shocked to see the composition of my average garisson. They're field armies designed to sally forth at the first sign of siege and take it to the field, which I really enjoy a lot more.
    Last edited by Tudor; June 06, 2007 at 10:04 AM.

  7. #7

    Default Re: french castle archers bug

    If you believe that it is correct to see:

    -Garrison archers to try to shoot enemies in -70 angle below them, with a +80 angle mortar shot......then
    Go play Vanilla or other mod. Darthmod is definitely not your liking.

    Towers already auto-fire. it would be good to see also human garrison that effective. We cannot due to wrong coding of wall 3D obstacles. I will not destroy a 90% good thing for a 10% bad one.

  8. #8
    The Border Reiver's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: french castle archers bug

    The firing positions of archers and crossbows is perfect IMO, thanks Darth!

  9. #9

    Default Re: french castle archers bug

    do you know if there are any projects currently that are trying to fix the retarded castle walls? I'd really rather not have to chose between vanilla and the useless arched fire, or darthmod and no fire.

  10. #10
    Thorn's Avatar Artifex
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    Default Re: french castle archers bug

    Put ur archers behind walls u'll see how effective they are when u can put some infantry over walls covered by a continuos archery fire form behind..

    Just try to change the way u use archers instead of change the game to fit ur needs..

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