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  1. #1
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    Icon5 BROKEN CRESCENT: Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Playing Guidelines – Battle mechanism

    Some facts first, which describe how the BC2 is constructed. If you have questions on how some other aspects work, let me know, and I'll do my best to explain it.


    • Levy units have no particular value other then reserve, or dead meat to tire the opponent’s forces.
    • Cav requires micro management. Typical role of cav is to charge and use mobility to its advantage.
    • Missile units are divide in classes. The higher classes will be more experienced, and so more accurate and deadly.
    • All units require micro management, so may need to get accustomed to using “pause” during the battle to assess status of your units and plan new moves.


    Defense value:

    In the first role, "large" defense values allow for longer battles, where typically rallying only on the attack points of the units is not sufficient. You will notice that because of extended battles, most of your units will become tired, and as such their battle capability will lessen. To avoid this issue, a logistical planning is required before each battle. Always, keep reserves ready for the battle. Yu will need to exchange some of the troops during the battle with reserves on the field, and do even more so during the siege. This effect is direct representation of the real time battle scenarios.

    In the second role, when combined with shield and armor values, we get what game refers to as Total Defense. This value is directly related with unit’s ability to withstand formed charge of the heavy cav. The BC2 is set so that if total defense value is less then 23, the unit's ability to absorb the charge will diminish with every dropping point after that (22, 21, ….)

    Cavalry:


    • Heavy Cav

    Even though, still the most powerful item in the game, some precautions need to be taken to utilize the cav as best as possible.
    DO always use heavy cav to eliminate opponents heavy cav unless opponent is not fielding many, in which case you should attack front line and brake unit formations.
    DO make repeated charges if your cav unit is charger, avoid melee with infantry.
    DO use harassment if you cav is heavy HA. Separate a particular unit you wish to target, attack them with missiles and let it separate form main body of army. Then use the heavy HA ability to withstand close melee engagements to attack them.
    DO Make plans how you will utilize heavy cav right from the beginning of the battle. Your target should be either to destroy opponent’s heavy cav, or destroy front line of inf, if opponent lacks heavy cav.
    DO use to your advantage if you have heavy cav with armored horse (cat types). They have extra stats against other cav.
    DON’T bury your cavalry into the mass of infantry unless your cav is armored horse. Use common sense for this.
    DON’T bury your cavalry into spearmen formations and expect them to win easily even with armored horse.
    DON’T DON’T DON’T just drive your cav around like 69 Chevy, because they’ll become tired, depending on the ground terrain, and become less useful in the battle.


    • Light Cav

    For attack on light inf, other light cav (if playing as muslim factions), harassing heavy cav.
    Chasing broken and fleeing units.


    • Missile Cav

    Use a lot more arrows, but accuracy is dependent on faction ownership and unit class. Light HA should attack form close distances, and dont use to try to score kills but to harass opponents.
    Example: Use your light HA to get attention of opponent’s heavy cav. In the mean time, move your heavy cav to be ready to attack the opponent by charging them from flank or rear.

    Missile Inf units

    Again dependent on the factional ownership, some missile units can be weaker then other. For example, Turkish archer is better then ERE archer of the same class.
    Always build your archer skills, and try not to waste them in melee fights, unless the unit is hybrid.

    Here are some guidelines for using missile units

    • Leavy Archer – attack light inf troops or light cav. Wait until opponent is in closer proximity, then positioned them on flank and fire. They can also use fire arrow to reduce moral of opponent’s army.

    DON’T waste arrows on heavy inf with large shields.
    DON’T waste arrows on fast moving cavalry
    DO wait for unit to get closer before commencing firing.


    • Professional Archer – allows for targeted medium level troops. Some are quipped with fire arrow.


    • Elite archer – can target any types of troops.


    • Javelins – effective against slow moving cav and all types of inf.


    Foot Knights

    Represent dismounted version of the regular knight unit, hence the number of solider and the cost of the unit is the same as the mounted version.

    DO keep them close to the infantry center where they can support the regular infantry. They have command value which gives a moral to nearby troops, and it will protect your center form collapsing if you infantry starts to lose moral.
    DO use them for siege defenses or siege attacks
    DO keep them guarded from cav charge attacks
    DO use them to flank infantry
    DON'T attack heavy inf with heavy weapons with AP properties, unless you have 2H Axe knight
    Last edited by Strelac; July 07, 2009 at 07:49 AM.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    updated with foot knights

  3. #3

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Nice. Thanks for the tips, I will remember and use them.

  4. #4

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Very wise words about the dismounted foot knights (and heavy swordsmen in general), these don't stand a chance against two-hand axe wielders.
    Anri Sugihara



    Click for more info

  5. #5

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Hi,
    I have a question concerning weapons.
    The attack rates of the units are fairly low (highest I saw was 13 with some general's knights).
    Now it seems to me a bit odd that most spear units have much less attack than non-spear units. Even elite spears have attack of 5 or 6 while elite swordsmen have 9 or 10 or more. Why?
    Secondly, is the "spear trait" still activated? Meaning: Do spears get a penalty against non-spear melee units? (esp. Infantry. I even saw a unit with attack 1 which was pretty odd :-)

    If, for example a unit of italian mecenaries (looks like venetian heavy inf.) with attack 3 (?!) fights against an enemy sword unit with attack 7 or 8, they will loose, although they have the "armor piercing" trait, right? (...assuming both have same defense)

    So generally, explaining a bit about the attack values and the differences of weapons in the battle mechanics would be appreciated.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    @george,
    BC2 uses "paper scissors rock" approach when it comes to unit types. In essence: melee inf beats - spearmen beats - cavalry beats - melee inf. (assuming same unit "classe")
    So, after I removed lots of useless animation moves (push or punch) spearmen formation became much stronger, as now their animation execution is faster and almost always its attack. This yields to reduces attack point value.
    So when you compare units against each other for attack points, you cannot compere spearmen vs swordsmen, but only the units within the same type because of the differences between animation execution for different unit types.

  7. #7

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    I noticed elite spearmen are very good against infantry, maybe a bit too good, khurasani heavy spearmen totally own ansar warriors, only costing ca. 100 gold more, plus cav bonus that might be a bit unbalanced(I know they are supposed to be the best spearmen in the game, but Oman doesn't have any better inf unit at all)

    I think AP units should be balanced, right now they are best at everything it seems, except killing unarmored units, but because most of them suck, AP units do that just OK too.

  8. #8

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Would have never thought of that. Thx for the answer.

    But what about the italian mercs? They have a hammer(armorpiercing) and 3 attack. Is this good or bad? Against sword attack 10?

    By the way, are dices involved in calulating hits? like attack 3 means 3-sided dice, defence 30 = 30-sided dice, so that a hit is only when the attk dice is higher than the defender dice? I always wondered how the hits are actually calculated?

    Moreover, it seems that experience makes archers more accurate. Is this correct?
    Last edited by George S. Patton; August 02, 2009 at 04:54 PM.

  9. #9

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Thank you Strelac.
    It's an useful guideline and i want to ask you something. If it's not a problem for you, can i translate it to turkish and share your guideline at www.totalwar-turkiye.com forums. Some people out there don't know english and i want to help them with translating your guides.

  10. #10
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    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Quote Originally Posted by lemtre View Post
    Thank you Strelac.
    It's an useful guideline and i want to ask you something. If it's not a problem for you, can i translate it to turkish and share your guideline at www.totalwar-turkiye.com forums. Some people out there don't know english and i want to help them with translating your guides.
    No objections, please go ahead.

    By the way, are dices involved in calulating hits? like attack 3 means 3-sided dice, defence 30 = 30-sided dice, so that a hit is only when the attk dice is higher than the defender dice? I always wondered how the hits are actually calculated?
    It appears that defense and attack value apply to whole units, not individual soldiers. In my observation and based on what I found in files, this is how it works:
    the entire formation has defense and armor value (set in EDU), not the individual soldiers. When individual soldiers face each other, they execute animaiton moves randomly. If move is defensive shield, then nothing happens (units do not really defend, its just visual) If move is attack slash from left (from example), and the opponent unit is in the range of that attack (defined in animaiton settings), then the whole unit from that individual solider will lose some life points. How much of life points will be lost would be dependent on "armor"+"defense" value and attackers "attack points".
    Then, based on level of life points, the game simulates deaths, and some solders will start falling randomly when opponents executes next animation.

    So in summary, individual units do not kill each other, however they do make an impact on how much of the total unit life will be impacted by their attack moves and attack points. The rest is game making calculation and dropping soldiers randomly, based on how much unit life is left.

  11. #11

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Hm, this is NOT what I have experienced. It always seemed to me the facing of the soldiers have an impact (defense skill not counting for attacks in the back). If I enclose a unit with two units of the same type of mine, the causalties seem to add more quickly on the enemy units back then on the front.

    And I frequently observe similar happenings in individual combats, especially in low attack - high defense stat systems: When more the one soldiers fight against one enemy soldiers, in most cases the "death blow" is dealt by one soldier NOT facing the enemies front.
    Or at least I recall this behaviour in RTW(-mods), I must admit Im not so sure about MTW2.
    "Worüber man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen."
    -Wittgenstein

  12. #12
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    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Its possible that back vs front matters. It's evident while experiencing missile attacks so I dont see why it should not be present in melee, but that just refines the concept I described below.

  13. #13

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    afaik the defense value only work on the front and only in melee, shield only work on the fron and left side (look at the post below from PointBlank he explains it) and armor works all around but get reduced by half against AP weapons. this means as soon as thoose high stat units get flanked they can even get killed by inferior troops. this makes the low on men but very high stats units extremly good street fights.

    you can also see a big difference between the pre 2.0 and post 2.0 cataphract type cav. pre 2.0 they had 16 armor and you could "wade" through medium tier swordsmen with nearly zero losses. this isn't the case post 2.0 anymore. armor is down to 10 (? not sure atm) with instead a lot more def. so as soon as they get attacked in the back their ttl is very low. but when facing infantry in close formation even decent searmen (3-5 attack + 4 spearbonus) have trouble killing them off.
    Last edited by Spider1110; August 23, 2009 at 07:46 AM.

  14. #14

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Shield is full from front and half from left and right. Defense is full from left, front and right. From what I've seen, attacks are soldier on soldier, because shield and defense values need to be calculated based on their relative positioning. Once armor is added in, attack value is compared to total defense to give chance of causing a casualty, or not. If there is a chance, a further check is made (or this could be worked into the attack check). If successful, the target becomes a casualty. If not, blood texture is added to the target to represent a non-incapacitating wound and it keeps fighting. However I never thought of it Strelac's way and he could definitely be right.

    I'm curious as to how you implemented the following: 'This value is directly related with unit’s ability to withstand formed charge of the heavy cav. The BC2 is set so that if total defense value is less then 23, the unit's ability to absorb the charge will diminish with every dropping point after that (22, 21, ….)'


    Isn't there is a smooth progression in increased charge effect with reduced target defense, and a smooth decrease in charge effect with increased target defense?

    Having a blast with your mod!
    Last edited by Point Blank; August 22, 2009 at 09:16 PM.

  15. #15

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Quote Originally Posted by Point Blank View Post
    Shield is full from front and half from left and right. Defense is full from left, front and right. From what I've seen, attacks are soldier on soldier, because shield and defense values need to be calculated based on their relative positioning. Once armor is added in, attack value is compared to total defense to give chance of causing a casualty, or not. If there is a chance, a further check is made (or this could be worked into the attack check). If successful, the target becomes a casualty. If not, blood texture is added to the target to represent a non-incapacitating wound and it keeps fighting. However I never thought of it Strelac's way and he could definitely be right.
    where did you get your info from? i'm not saying you're wrong. i got mine from the vanilla FAUST. but that doesn't have to be right. that's why i want to know your source.

  16. #16

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    It was confirmed by Lusted from CA. I think having the shield having the same defense from the left and right side is silly though, no idea why CA did that. Still this is from the company that released the game with the shield bug so that shield counted negative for total defense rather than positive, and the 2 handed bug...
    Last edited by Point Blank; August 23, 2009 at 07:23 AM.

  17. #17

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    thanks a lot. do you have a formula or table for the %chances to hit for different attack/defense values?

  18. #18

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Does the right side defence of shield count against missile attacks if the unit carrying the shields is not ready? If so, that's silly.

  19. #19
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    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    I'm curious as to how you implemented the following: 'This value is directly related with unit’s ability to withstand formed charge of the heavy cav. The BC2 is set so that if total defense value is less then 23

    PB.
    It's basically bench marked behavior based on our charge values. I'd imagine that changing the charge value, could shift the threshold point. For sake of that note, I was referring to formed charge of heavy BC cav.
    In our original settings, the total defense value above certain point, meant that unit will stay cohesive after the charge is execute. The number of men will die after charge is execute, but unit itself will stay as whole. After dropping points of total defense, the unit would start to brake noticeably after the charge, until at some point there was no cohesive resistance. This is noticeable, when you charge leavy units with our heavy cav.
    Its only meant for us as a goal when forming the unit stats. For example, if we wanted a spearmen formation to be resistant to charge, we had to make unit's total defense to above 23 (in this case). That can be done by either tweaking armor, defense or shield, as long total of those three was above the threshold.

    As for the other, I had read the investor summary of CA (SEGA?), and the game which was brought up in the example was RTW. In there it clearly stated that units do not have collision detection in melee, equivalent to say games like oblivion or M&B. Instead, very limited "trigger" collision is used to drive damage to the unit(s?). Hence, I think one-on -one fights are only the catalyst, unless the MTW2 engine is so much different from RTW...which I doubt its true for the items above...but you never know.
    Last edited by Strelac; August 24, 2009 at 10:27 AM.

  20. #20

    Default Re: BC2 Playing Guidelines - Battle mechanics

    Ok thanks that's interesting how you worked that out with the cav charges, very nice approach!
    I'd say you are right that the M2TW system is largely the same as RTW.

    Thanks for the great mod, its very polished

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