[Discussion] Chivalry II : SV 3.x - Suggestions and Feedback

[SicilianVespers]

I can support deterring their use to bypass the script, but making them ineffective to the point where they have no use is counterproductive. Why have them in at all if they can't take down a gate or a wall? I can just as easily use spies to get past the garrison script if need be.

I'd reccommend getting rid of them altogether, and replacing the building and unit slots with something new. Personally, I don't use them as is, nor will I construct the siege structures...

I think we should start by increasing the ammo, as it seems we are running out of ammo is the main problem. At least for me.

Yep, and hopefully this won't turn too many people off. I like it - it enforce a slower pace to the game (up until a point of course).

There is no shame in playing on M/M I should have problably recommended it to the new players.

Could be - I am playing the Early Era. As Genoa, I have captured Cordoba, but the problem isn't stacks of Moors - it's stacks of Spanish and Portuguese troops that aren't doing anything at all. Likewise with France, several large stackes circling the wagons around Marseille.

I know the behaviour is more or less M2TW, rather than your mod, but the sheer volume of stacks is a result of the mod. I think the game can be just as difficult (or fun) without having to spend hours fighting stack after stack.

Perhaps getting rid of that spawn-script, or reducing recruitment pools.

I will have to check if we are capping the money script. Once they hit a predefined surplus, we should probably stop giving the AI money.

Wait until they get 3 Gold Chevrons of experience, and an armour upgrade. I feel bad for the AI having to face these guys...lol.

I defended my two forts with one GCG and a merc spear....I know what you mean.

I might also suggest a reduction in the availability of levy units. I haven't looked at your EDB file, so I don't know what is possible - but having the ability to recruit 3 different levy spearmen with the same unit stats just clutters up the recruitment pool. I'll take a peek at some of your files to see if I can make some actual suggestions on how to improve upon the AoR aspect of your mod.

Anyway, it's a great mod. You guys have done soe fantastic work on it.

This should only occur were the AOR zones overlap. We probably need to do some tweaking here, or at the very least rename some of the Levy units.

[DaVinci]

Siege theme

We'll have to look at this in more detail.

- This helps to deter the use of siege weapons to by pass the garrison script.

- Dragging siege equipment across Europe isn't really realistic. (Ideally, they should really be built on the spot, or if they are transported, they should cut the movement of the stack in 1/2 when travelling)

More thought needs to go into this....

Especially, it is why

- stone wall structures and enforced gates weren't easy to crack
- equal with which siege weapons this was the case
- sieges sometimes lasted years
- mighty siege weapons were rare and expensive (especially gunpowder based)
- sieges were very expensive, not only for the besieged/encircled victim
- the balance i did here, simulates the historical reality

Please consider, what the goal of Chivalry II is: Historical-realism design, reducing exploits, challenging gameplay.

What i see here though, is that we could think about to realise all siege units as mercenary units ... while this will produce the problem that the AI (and players with AI exploit) might hire them too much.
In this case, we have to limit them very much and the costs must be high.

[OTZ]

I understand why you've done it that way - but it makes no sense in the context of gameplay. Even as mercs they are useless. I would have to bring 6 catapults to a siege to get through the gates - what is the purpose of this? They are ineffective and their cost (including the building of the siege structure itself) is not in line with their use. Keeping the catapults etc as is, does not make the game more challenging, nor does it help simulate long sieges...

The best solution is to give them enough ammo to make them effective, but make them prohibitively expensive. If you make the recruitment and upkeep cost extremely high, you can force the player to limit their use, and prevent them from getting around the garrison script. If the player wants to avoid the garrison script effect, then they will have to spend thousands of florins (maybe 4000 florins to recruit and another 2000 upkeep cost) to purchase the siege weapon...

As I said, I won't bother building them as it doesn't make sense. I'll use a spy to get in the gates if I want to - no sense taking up a unit slot with a Trebuchet that won't do anything for me.

[SicilianVespers]

I understand why you've done it that way - but it makes no sense in the context of gameplay. Even as mercs they are useless. I would have to bring 6 catapults to a siege to get through the gates - what is the purpose of this? They are ineffective and their cost (including the building of the siege structure itself) is not in line with their use. Keeping the catapults etc as is, does not make the game more challenging, nor does it help simulate long sieges...

The best solution is to give them enough ammo to make them effective, but make them prohibitively expensive. If you make the recruitment and upkeep cost extremely high, you can force the player to limit their use, and prevent them from getting around the garrison script. If the player wants to avoid the garrison script effect, then they will have to spend thousands of florins (maybe 4000 florins to recruit and another 2000 upkeep cost) to purchase the siege weapon...

As I said, I won't bother building them as it doesn't make sense. I'll use a spy to get in the gates if I want to - no sense taking up a unit slot with a Trebuchet that won't do anything for me.

I think you may have better results by not targeting the Gatehouse. I did a test siege on a large city with 2 x Trebuchet and 2 x Catapults, and managed to break the walls fairly easily:





The reinforced gatehouse was pretty much impregnable. I think a little ammo increase may still be in order.

[JaM]

DaVinci: Is possible to edit walls in M2TW? I remember that you had your own walls in RTW. Right now there is a huge bug with stone walls because they are blocking the line of fire for missile units (only half of them could fire, another half is always passive. Is possible to lower those crenelations so more soldiers would fire?

[OTZ]

More ammo would be good - just enough so that one unit could break down a wall (maybe not always - but most of the time.)

Other than a few minor issues I am really enjoying this mod.

I have started as the English now, during the Early Era. Quite the challenge! I have been kicked out of France, and am trying to keep the Scots out of Ireland at the moment. Money isn't really an issue (by turn 30 I was banking about 6K a turn). I've realised that building forts is definitely the key to maintaining your army while not breaking the bank.

Off hand, do you know how many untis are in the mod? Have you reached the limit?

[JaM]

One suggestion regarding siege equipment - what about making them to be mercenary units? Give them very slow strategy map movement,lower their accuracy vs soldiers (just imagine how hard was to hit an enemy unit from trebuchet... if they needed to hit walls they spend several days to range in, against mobile unit it would be almost impossible) and make them recruitable in every province (for lots of cash ofcourse) - that way if you need to siege a castle, you will hire some mercenary trebuchets, but it will be not a good idea to move around with them in army... same could be also applied to all artilery units except late pieces like culverins and serpentines - those were first artilery pieces with relativly good mobility.

[SicilianVespers]

More ammo would be good - just enough so that one unit could break down a wall (maybe not always - but most of the time.)

Other than a few minor issues I am really enjoying this mod.

I have started as the English now, during the Early Era. Quite the challenge! I have been kicked out of France, and am trying to keep the Scots out of Ireland at the moment. Money isn't really an issue (by turn 30 I was banking about 6K a turn). I've realised that building forts is definitely the key to maintaining your army while not breaking the bank.

Off hand, do you know how many untis are in the mod? Have you reached the limit?

We have reached the 500 unit limit, but I am able to bypass this via the launcher menu (seperate EDU per era). This is the reason the darkage menu selection is not interchangeable with the other eras.

I have removed alot of redundant units, but there is still room to find more.

One suggestion regarding siege equipment - what about making them to be mercenary units? Give them very slow strategy map movement,lower their accuracy vs soldiers (just imagine how hard was to hit an enemy unit from trebuchet... if they needed to hit walls they spend several days to range in, against mobile unit it would be almost impossible) and make them recruitable in every province (for lots of cash ofcourse) - that way if you need to siege a castle, you will hire some mercenary trebuchets, but it will be not a good idea to move around with them in army... same could be also applied to all artilery units except late pieces like culverins and serpentines - those were first artilery pieces with relativly good mobility.

We have discussed this in the past, it seems to be the most historical approach

[DaVinci]

DaVinci: Is possible to edit walls in M2TW? I remember that you had your own walls in RTW. Right now there is a huge bug with stone walls because they are blocking the line of fire for missile units (only half of them could fire, another half is always passive. Is possible to lower those crenelations so more soldiers would fire?

I saw this point has been discussded in different threads/mod forums in the past, and as far as i know, there weren't any positive results.

In general, of course the cities and walls can be edited, and it is, afaik, content of some mod projects, as yet no content of Chivalry II though. If the editing could improve the firing from walls issue is another question and beyond my knowledge.

Quote:Originally Posted by JaM
One suggestion regarding siege equipment - what about making them to be mercenary units? Give them very slow strategy map movement,lower their accuracy vs soldiers (just imagine how hard was to hit an enemy unit from trebuchet... if they needed to hit walls they spend several days to range in, against mobile unit it would be almost impossible) and make them recruitable in every province (for lots of cash ofcourse) - that way if you need to siege a castle, you will hire some mercenary trebuchets, but it will be not a good idea to move around with them in army... same could be also applied to all artilery units except late pieces like culverins and serpentines - those were first artilery pieces with relativly good mobility.

Yes, this is probable a good approach, and has been suggested already in another post by me. There will be without doubt the issue with the AI, which eventually will waste money to those merc hiring, because the AI often likes to spend a lot of money for expensive/effective units if it has an easy access to them. I dislike the idea that these merc should be hirable in every region, i think, they should be available in main regions, and especially gunpowder siege mercs should be available in regions where they historically often were produced or available to give the whole a historical-realism reflection.

[JaM]

Cant you try it? (i mean edit wall crenelations), i think it is worth the effort, because having crossbowmen on walls is the worst thing to do right now - exactly the opposite how they were used in the past.

I tested many different approaches, changing formations, moding projectile files, but with the same results. I'm possitive that it is caused by those crenelations, because wooden walls that have it done differently, dont have this problem as obvious and ranged units are not blocked. Only stone walls are problematic.

[DaVinci]

Sorry, don't expect any of those changes done by us, there is no capacity in this area. We would include it certainly if another modder would find a solution.

[OTZ]

As England: Feudal Sergeants and Norman Spearmen have the exact same stats, but the FS are more expensive, with the only trade off of Very Good Stamina. Not sure if this was intentional or not...

[EmperorDude]

Can you make the movement rates faster?
Every time I change the movement rates in descr_character.txt and start a High Era campaign it reverts back to the original values. Its very slow. Even with roads, I can't move troops from Nottingham to Dorchester in a turn:hmmm:Are there other values I must change to improve these or am I stuck?

[DaVinci]

As England: Feudal Sergeants and Norman Spearmen have the exact same stats, but the FS are more expensive, with the only trade off of Very Good Stamina. Not sure if this was intentional or not...

The "Norman Spearmen" are little better Levy Spearmen only, atm. ... to reflect their warlike mentality. They eventually shall get another name in future, perhaps just "Norman Levy Spearmen" .

[DaVinci]

Can you make the movement rates faster?
Every time I change the movement rates in descr_character.txt and start a High Era campaign it reverts back to the original values. Its very slow. Even with roads, I can't move troops from Nottingham to Dorchester in a turn:hmmm:Are there other values I must change to improve these or am I stuck?

About which kind of character do you speak? The family guys have a huge range already. If you mean troops without a character, then yes, they shall be slow.
But it should work if you change the bold value

type general

actions moving_normal, moving_quickmarch, garrison, assault, attack, besiege, entrench, ambush, exchange
wage_base 0
starting_action_points 120

[OTZ]

The "Norman Spearmen" are little better Levy Spearmen only, atm. ... to reflect their warlike mentality. They eventually shall get another name in future, perhaps just "Norman Levy Spearmen" .

YEs, but the Feudal Sergeants have the same stats, so they are also just a "little better levy spearmen" - should they not be more powerful?

[SicilianVespers]

I believe we had planned to turn them into an AOR/Merc type unit, and they should get a boost in this role.

In this role, they would probably be available in England, Normandy, S.Italy/Sicily, and maybe Antioch.

[DaVinci]

YEs, but the Feudal Sergeants have the same stats, so they are also just a "little better levy spearmen" - should they not be more powerful?

The Sergeants of the early periods (incl. high era partly) weren't real professional warriors btw., they were hired from the feudal peasant class, and did any services for their feudal lords (in piecetimes and followed just their lords in wartimes), and got just a little training (a little!) with weaponry, and got their poor equipment. So, they are indeed little better than normal levies, what is reflected in the stats, imo. - Only less Sergeants got the preference to gain proper equipment and/or a horse.

Sergeants got first later, from on the late era, a significant change, namely became a rather professional military status, and were then also pretty always mounted units, as here and there standing armies were kept and deployed.

[Blakdust]

Few suggestions

1.blood+dirt on units http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=174686 might be worth adding this mod if possible

2. Give Elite bowmen deploy stakes EDIT: I looked in the Export_units an its says they have stakes but they dont :/

Thanks an awesome mod

[Rex Inanimatus]

A few suggestions :

1] faction loading screen DA a map arround 888

2] faction loading screen only mention the number of provinces to be kept and details for those just ingame, cause now they sometimes overlap in the screen.

3] armour : removal of toptier smiths in the earlier campaigns, probably make them events in the later campaigns.

full plate not reinvented until end of 14th century
early plate was first used in 13th century
chainmail and padded armour were already in use at DA