High density of settlements?

[Samsonov]

Hi I am new to this mod, but I do have solid experience with other mods (LtC, Kingdoms Grand Campaign etc). I didn't like SS 6.1 because of it's completely broken diplomacy model, otherwise it was fine. I came to like LtC and especially KGC because of their large maps. What I like is not large maps per se, it's rather how the towns and castles being pretty far away, combined with movement rates, lend itself to having decent percentage of open field battles, as opposed to sieges.

Now I am giving Chivalry SV a chance, and generally I like what I see, except for one thing: it's the most dense mod in terms of having bazillions of settlements on a rather small-ish map. It appears that you can quite easily move armies to any neighboring city (or even a few cities) in one jump. Consequently, I expect good 90% of battles with this mod to turn into sieges, with open field battles hard to come by (if not entirely impossible on some, ultra dense parts of the map).

I know that siege warfare was very important in medieval times, but even vanilla went too far with this. IMO, and I read about medieval warfare a lot, ideal ratio would be something like 60% of field battles to 40% of sieges, of course, depending on the theatre. No MTW mod that I ever tried even approaches this (KGC is the closest, but still too siege-heavy for my taste), but Chivalry appears to be completely off the mark in this aspect, because settlements are so damn close to each other!

Thoughts and comments?

[husker9.2]

Hi I am new to this mod, but I do have solid experience with other mods (LtC, Kingdoms Grand Campaign etc). I didn't like SS 6.1 because of it's completely broken diplomacy model, otherwise it was fine. I came to like LtC and especially KGC because of their large maps. What I like is not large maps per se, it's rather how the towns and castles being pretty far away, combined with movement rates, lend itself to having decent percentage of open field battles, as opposed to sieges.

Now I am giving Chivalry SV a chance, and generally I like what I see, except for one thing: it's the most dense mod in terms of having bazillions of settlements on a rather small-ish map. It appears that you can quite easily move armies to any neighboring city (or even a few cities) in one jump. Consequently, I expect good 90% of battles with this mod to turn into sieges, with open field battles hard to come by (if not entirely impossible on some, ultra dense parts of the map).

I know that siege warfare was very important in medieval times, but even vanilla went too far with this. IMO, and I read about medieval warfare a lot, ideal ratio would be something like 60% of field battles to 40% of sieges, of course, depending on the theatre. No MTW mod that I ever tried even approaches this (KGC is the closest, but still too siege-heavy for my taste), but Chivalry appears to be completely off the mark in this aspect, because settlements are so damn close to each other!

Thoughts and comments?

Go to my AAR link and you'll see different

believe it or not mate there are quite a few field battle from the months of playing time i've accumulated.

Sicilian vespers AI is really opportunistic and isn't afraid to meet you in open battle. Close settlement density doesn't always translate to seige only battles and you'll see this in the mod!

[Samsonov]

Nice AAR. Especially considering my real life name is Oleg My father named me after the Rus-Varangian prince (and we're not even Russians).

However it did not alleviate my worries about settlement density. Even in your AAR there are too many siege battles, and in open steppes of Russia there realistically should be next to none. If your AAR has less-than-average number of sieges that's due to it taking place in the least dense part of the map. Most of the map is so dense with settlements it's almost impossible to move without bumping into some settlement.

As I said every mod (except KGC to a degree) is like that, but CSV is probably worst in density department. That's too bad - modders think that "realism" means having billions of units and hundeseds of provinces + towns, while ignoring important characteristics of medieval warfare such as siege to field battle ratio in a campaign!

[Schrödinger]

I remember in vanilla RTW Greece and Macedonia were about as choc-a-bloc as CSV and had an amazingly high percentage of field battles, perhaps a mix of aggressive AI and lots of passes, but I think the settlements are good, maybe the AI should be programmed to take a better stance on field battles :S (Speaking as someone who knows nothing about modding), I don't like sieges either unless they are massive (4 mongol cav stacks against my Milanese spearman one stack in Antioch was especially memorable) and usually autoresolve, meaning I end up playing a bout 70:30 land:siege battles

[SicilianVespers]

Hi I am new to this mod, but I do have solid experience with other mods (LtC, Kingdoms Grand Campaign etc). I didn't like SS 6.1 because of it's completely broken diplomacy model, otherwise it was fine. I came to like LtC and especially KGC because of their large maps. What I like is not large maps per se, it's rather how the towns and castles being pretty far away, combined with movement rates, lend itself to having decent percentage of open field battles, as opposed to sieges.

Now I am giving Chivalry SV a chance, and generally I like what I see, except for one thing: it's the most dense mod in terms of having bazillions of settlements on a rather small-ish map. It appears that you can quite easily move armies to any neighboring city (or even a few cities) in one jump. Consequently, I expect good 90% of battles with this mod to turn into sieges, with open field battles hard to come by (if not entirely impossible on some, ultra dense parts of the map).

I know that siege warfare was very important in medieval times, but even vanilla went too far with this. IMO, and I read about medieval warfare a lot, ideal ratio would be something like 60% of field battles to 40% of sieges, of course, depending on the theatre. No MTW mod that I ever tried even approaches this (KGC is the closest, but still too siege-heavy for my taste), but Chivalry appears to be completely off the mark in this aspect, because settlements are so damn close to each other!

Thoughts and comments?

I thought of lowering the movment rate a bit, so more units are caught in the field. I decided not to becasue I didn't want to hear it from the "I hate field costs" crowd

This could be a good experiment, and minimod.

[DaLeGiOnArY]

i besieged venice at turn three as genoa. i abandoned the seige when i remembered they get a full stack of levies. i returned at turn five with a full stack of more professional troops. i brought my whole army back to my capital to recieve the new units.

[DaVinci]

Hi I am new to this mod, but I do have solid experience with other mods (LtC, Kingdoms Grand Campaign etc). I didn't like SS 6.1 because of it's completely broken diplomacy model, otherwise it was fine. I came to like LtC and especially KGC because of their large maps. What I like is not large maps per se, it's rather how the towns and castles being pretty far away, combined with movement rates, lend itself to having decent percentage of open field battles, as opposed to sieges.

Now I am giving Chivalry SV a chance, and generally I like what I see, except for one thing: it's the most dense mod in terms of having bazillions of settlements on a rather small-ish map. It appears that you can quite easily move armies to any neighboring city (or even a few cities) in one jump. Consequently, I expect good 90% of battles with this mod to turn into sieges, with open field battles hard to come by (if not entirely impossible on some, ultra dense parts of the map).

I know that siege warfare was very important in medieval times, but even vanilla went too far with this. IMO, and I read about medieval warfare a lot, ideal ratio would be something like 60% of field battles to 40% of sieges, of course, depending on the theatre. No MTW mod that I ever tried even approaches this (KGC is the closest, but still too siege-heavy for my taste), but Chivalry appears to be completely off the mark in this aspect, because settlements are so damn close to each other!

Thoughts and comments?

I remember somebody else mentioned something similar for Empire TW (in our Empire Realism thread).

I recall here what i told there to have the increased possibility of field battles.
While it is dependent on the CAI behaviour, you have generally (at least) the following option(s):

- Invasion/attack: You as human player enter the enemy land ... just "raid" their land until the AI will attack you, or you attack them in the moment the AI has sent reinforcements into the concerning region or gets out of the settlement. You might even be able to lure them to your army with one single unit in front, and the main army behind.
- Defence: You as human player would position your home garrison army not in the settlement, but outside of the settlement. It is clear, that in almost every case you'll have the option to get an invader into a field battle then.

The moral of the story: It's you, the human player who steers the campaign gameplay at most. If you don't, you lack enough experience with TW games