Archers/Battle AI and SS

[theoander]

I've only been playing SS for 2 days or so, and I really enjoy it. Most of it is a huge improvement from the standard game, but I'm becoming a little disenchated becuase of how the battles end up playing out.

Archer infantry seems to be under powered. The AI spends little time under thier volleys and they dont do enough damage to warrant their cost or the space in an army. Even while protecting a castle, they dont seem to be worth while.

The battle AI seems to have somthing messed up. When I order a unit to attack an enemy unit, I see my soldiers charge, then stop, and only several of my men engage the enemy, with the rest sitting roughly 20 feet back. To counter this I find myself frequently having to order my troops to run through the enemy. I need to continully order this as the battle progresses to get an acceptable result. Ordering an attack is simply not useful until the enemy has very few men left in a unit.

Similary the calvary units act strange when giving them an order to attack, they frequently focus on just a couple of front enemys rather than trying to plow through the enemy line. When the enemy routes, I need to micro manage them to effectively clean up a single enemy unit.

I'm wondering if other people are observing the same issues, and what other peoples thoughts are on this.

I absolutely love the rest of the mod however. Aside from these issues, its phenominal.

[Ultraman]

I agree about the archers in the game. The only thing I find worthwhile sometimes is having tons of crossbow units on a hill doing a lost of damage before the enemy arrives.

Regarding the charge weirdness you've mentioned, welcome to the world of bugs that CA was supposed to have fixed, and even claimed to have fixed with the last patch, except it isn't obviously so because we all keep experiencing it (though some might say to a lesser degree than before.) Hopefully, that kink will get worked out with the expansion that I almost feel like a sucker for waiting to buy. Pardon my cynicism. It's just that mods are the only think keeping me going with this game. Unfortunately the charge bug and much of the AI stuff is hardcoded and can't be modded away.

[LordWedggie]

I think those are CA bugs, I see them in every other mod I have tried. As for the arrows, I don't think they are underpowered, I think they are about right? Do you win all your battles oh VH/VH? I had some free time this week so I tried a few mods, and except a few heavily outnumbered castle assaults, I won every engagement, the average kill ratio:

M2TW 1.2: more than 1 to 10
DLV 3.1: about 1 to 10
DLV 3.1 with Darth OS24: about 1 to 10

now BB: about 1 to 3! Lastnight I had one I NEARLY lost, equal army, I lost 900 killing 800 of the AI, but managed to win.

I love DLV's massive map and RPG stuff but it just gets old winning every engagement with such ease. I don't know what KK did to the stats and AI but it sure is harder.

If you think your ranged units don't kill enough, try this... this is what I do since shogun and KK's mod is the first one that may force a change to this tactic:

1st line archer, with skirmish mode OFF.
2nd line spear/pikes for defense
3rd line swords/axe etc for attack
calv at the flanks

when enemy archer moves up, charge em with calv (I almost use light calv exclusively, only use them against archers and chasing routed units)

when enemy infantry charges move your 2nd line spears in front of your archers, with skirmish off the archers will continue shooting

when melee is engaged send in your attack infantry, i used to try to flank, but nowdays I don't even bother....

each of my archer units usually have 300+ kills in other mods and about 200 in SS... since I usually have 4 in my army, that's about 1000 kills in every battle, and because the AI doesn't know how to protect and properly use his archers, I think giving them more power will just make battles way too easy.

[LordWedggie]

I agree about the archers in the game. The only thing I find worthwhile sometimes is having tons of crossbow units on a hill doing a lost of damage before the enemy arrives.

Regarding the charge weirdness you've mentioned, welcome to the world of bugs that CA was supposed to have fixed, and even claimed to have fixed with the last patch, except it isn't obviously so because we all keep experiencing it (though some might say to a lesser degree than before.) Hopefully, that kink will get worked out with the expansion that I almost feel like a sucker for waiting to buy. Pardon my cynicism. It's just that mods are the only think keeping me going with this game. Unfortunately the charge bug and much of the AI stuff is hardcoded and can't be modded away.

Perhaps CA in the future should just provide us with a game engine with more mod features, I bought every one of their games and expansions and I think I will stop with m2tw. Mods such as DLV and SS are what kept my interest, I would have no problems with paying for these mods ( and the engine) if that's what happens next.

[Mike13531]

I do not agree with the archer part.
I do agree with the cavalry charging part, same on mine, everytime it charges, it seem to stop in front of the enemy and then pull out their secondary weapon

[ludiq]

@theoander: also noticed the weird infantry charge but only sometimes, in the heat of battle I never had time to investigate why it happens. Cavalry charges are ok to me but I always rush (double-click) them and of course give them sufficient distance to the enemy to form a charging line (or at least a group) otherwise they switch to swords

@LordWedggie: that's the reason I got bored of archers and switched to crossbow nations. Agree that realistically archers sould be more powerful but for now the AI isn't smart enough to couter tactics like the one you described, so they seem balanced enough ... for now

[MitchXIII]

Yup the infantry charge issue is real, it happened to me too... About the cavalry charge, I dunno sometimes i get the charge right, sometimes not... it depends on how well the unit is aligned

[Mike13531]

mitch your right, i don't know if the charge is even fixable, but hopefully someone will be able to

[aduellist]

I remember reading a few threads early on that addressed how the M2TW charge mechanism worked and various ways to "fix" it. The basic issue (apologies to anyone who finds this info to be excessive flagellation of a long deceased equine mammal) is not understanding how the new charge mechanism works. And, yes, I'd rather they hadn't mucked with the perfectly good "old" method.

If you use the venerable double-click to charge, you're "doing it wrong". In M2TW you get your unit lined up and then single-click to charge. This maintains unit cohesion and eliminates the straggling issue. I've gotten used to it and have no problems conducting charges now. But Mitch is right. If you don't get the alignment right, you're screwed.

Archer effectiveness is just fine, IMHO. I line up four units of archers behind my spear units (skirmish mode and fire at will off) and use them to suppress/kill enemy archers. The nice thing is that, since the AI usually leads with archers in classic skirmisher mode, by targeting the archers you also get to inflict casualties on any units passing through them. Beat 'em up, run 'em down with light cav once the enemy foot engages your line, and they're in perfect position to hit any shaken/wavering enemy units in the rear once they've mopped the archers up.

[Ultraman]

If you use the venerable double-click to charge, you're "doing it wrong". In M2TW you get your unit lined up and then single-click to charge. This maintains unit cohesion and eliminates the straggling issue. I've gotten used to it and have no problems conducting charges now. But Mitch is right. If you don't get the alignment right, you're screwed.

I think you're right about this, but only to a certain extent. The problem I mostly find with the infantry charge bug (if I may call it that) is that I still get units that only charge the first row of guys while everyone else sits back and then slooooowly walk in to fight. Then, the whole unit balloons out behind the first row of guys creating big gaps with no one rushing in to fight.

[Mike13531]

ah, thanks for the points aduelist, i'd give you rep again, but i already gave you 1, but thanks