The battle system has been unfairly criticised and for the wrong reason. I've made a video to explain.

[Irish guy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3qrtr-Omgg

The problem I believe is not with the combat itself but rather with the "early game" and unit balance. To put it simply, low tier units are so weak that they kill each other in seconds. Because of this they break quickly and because these units are the first ones people see in the campaign, they rush to condemn the whole battle system as broken.

As can be seen in the video, the armies clash in a single battle line which is maintained for a long period. There would have been plenty of time to perform a variety of flanking tactics and other maneuvers while the lines were engaged. It looks very much like a Medieval II battle from above in terms of pace and cohesion. What is needed is a re-balance so that all units of similar strength at the low tier level will engage each other like the video shows.


So now that battle speed has been addressed let me talk about "blobification"

People have complained that units mash together and don't form anything like a battle line. This is linked to the above. As you can see in the video, when the armies collide, they do indeed "mash" together and it looks messy. But. After a few seconds they have re-aligned and begin fighting in formation. Again the problem lies with early game conceptions.

Ideally, low tier units would also re-align when engaging the enemy and fight it out, but again, due to low morale and defense they die too fast and break before any cohesion or order can be established.

These problems can be fixed by simply increasing unit defenses across the board thereby making all battles occur as the one in the video did.


TL;DR

Cause of battle issues: Low tier units die/break too fast. As a result, battle lines don't form and it ends before the initial charge blob can stabilize/balance out. Battle ends.

Fix: Increase all unit defenses.

Point of thread: To explain the issues to the uninformed and re-assure everyone that this is a simple problem with an easy fix.




Please have some patience guys. It is a simple problem which mods can easily sort out. CA may even patch this up.
Thanks for reading and please discuss.

[Eofor]

The video link doesn't work.

[stevehoos]

The siege mechanics -if you can call it that- were designed with the whit and cohesion of a blind box turtle.

[Martin N]

Yeh you linked to your uploaded page. Attack is too high too, on infantry, especially with Rome.

[Augustus Scipius]

Agreed. Even though the AI is decent, the battles are a big disappointment thanks to the running speed of units, the combat speed and the low morale.

[Quickening]

Good video. This has been my experience too. I love the battles. Movement speed is too high, but otherwise, great.

[Cruzz]

What about the hitpoint system and archers who will kill nothing for 10 seconds and then annihilate a unit?

What about the hilarious war dogs?

What about the lack of any response to cavalry charges for non-skirmish units?

It ain't just the lack of clearcut battlelines that is broken.

[Irish guy]

Video link fixed.

[Purplzhazy]

Ok, great video man thanks.
It's simple, fight needs to last for at least 5x vanilla's time ! This elite unit need to be some basic unit !
But, in CA mind, 15 min of fight is just for psycopath drugged players !

[JGL]

I have a feeling the pace of the battles may be to hide weaknesses in the AI, i mean surely any competent game tester would tell you its too quick?

[tono4850]

if it can be modded EASILY, please mod it for us. Lots of us will be very grateful

[siregar0511]

Irish Guy, I hope you're right and I'm wrong. Great video, BTW.

Now, concerning the mob style battle in the early game, does this have anything to do with diffculty level, too? If I play in very hard/legendary battle diff. will the AI still throw their early units around chaotically or will they be more organized and be more like an army? I also notice that they way the praetorian cohort move and fight is way difference than, say, the principes. Does different tier units have anything to do with this?

[Revan The Great]

Can't watch the video right now, but just from reading your original post I see where you're coming from and generally agree. I haven't encountered armies of higher tier units yet, just low level levies in my campaigns which, by the way, I would want to rout fairly quickly unless supported by or mixed in with more quality soldiers. I could definitely see battles lasting a little longer if it were, say 10 units of Pikemen vs. 10 Principes however.

[agent 47]

You puck two of the best units in the game as an example. Ive played a number of custom battles with standard army compositions between various factions and there are are no prolonged battles or battle lines from my experience.The single worst design decision that ruins the battles especially as Romans are how the javelins are handled. Standing your ground and letting attackers tire themselves against your lines isnt incentivised because troops can only fire javelins on charge.

[Evan MF]

It's awful. The units seep into eachother, there's no sense of weight, impact or innate cohesion. Even if they do the superficial 'pivoting', it does not appear to have any tactical effect on the battle. There's no incentive to even effortly craft the situation you're depicting in that video, especially since the AI never comes at you that way either. Throw them in as a mob and you get the same, if not better, result for your army. Warscape is awful for melee combat.

[Eofor]

Standing your ground and letting attackers tire themselves against your lines isnt incentivised because troops can only fire javelins on charge.

Good.

[agent 47]

Good.

I dont see how this is good. I dont play multiplayer, maybe its good to stop camping is what you are saying?Its a good way of portraying the disciplined drilled approach to fighting the Romans had in game. It creates a strong visual contrast between how civilized armies fought and "barbaric" nations fought.

[Eofor]

maybe its good to stop camping is what you are saying?

Yes.

Its a good way of portraying the disciplined drilled approach to fighting the Romans had in game.

No it's not.

[EmperorJulian]

This is an interesting comparison, and something I had not considered myself. The video is pretty illustrative, though I imagine an engagement of that type wouldn't be likely to occur "in the wild" as it were either. My only concern with people complaining about the battle speed is that they'll get their wish and even the most minor engagement will take 45 minutes to complete. Some of us do have to work, and I'd rather not have Rome 2 become cost prohibitive (time wise) if at all possible. One would hope that there's some kind of middle ground here - a fix that doesn't swing things way too far in the other direction.

[Hekko]

While it illustrates a nice situation of how it can work out it still fails to account for two things. First of all it's very unlikely that you will find an initial engagement that is that clean. Secondly, while it will look right-ish at given the right circumstances it still does not change the way it plays out if you add some chaos in the proximity of the situation.

I mean, while you may be able to achieve a nice line like that, does not mean that the opponent using a blob will be inefficient because of it, chances are that the blobber will be more efficient.