Article: New playstyle? A new challenge? General camera and deep in depth role playing seeking realism and challenge

[Head of the Heavy Chargers]

Evening everyone. I'm here to give you a challenge. And I'd like to hear your views. Bare with me for a second. You might get something new here hopefully. I'm getting killed because of this new stuff . Actually I don't know if this is the right place to post, but here goes.

Article:

Introduction
Rules and Style
Personal experience

• Introduction:

I'm a veteran player. All my campaigns get boring after the start. I play Stainless steel 6.2 RC/RR (no BGR) to get some more difficulty. I doesn't matter what mod you play. Still after the start my campaigns become just mass production and mass overkill/overrun. I forget who is my king, who is his son... soon everything is just blurry and all I see is my endless stacks and big cities and castles. Who am I in all this? .... My campaigns get boring. How about yours?

So for a fresh start I thought about changing some rules in my play style.

Who am I?
I'm the king!

Who do I control?
Characters, merchants, spies, assasins, family, cities. I can give them missions and orders.

What about armies?
I'm not there am I? So I can't control them... only give them orders where to go, but fighting is up to the captain or general. So autoresolving is your only hope.

Who am I on the battlefield?
Just a heavily armored knight on a horse, the General, the King. Can I order companies on the other side of my line? Call them on a radio? Tell them to attack this and that instantly? I don't think so. Even runners would take time to get the order trough and would the noble or mercenary captain even listen to my order?

I guess I can order the general charge of all companies with a horn blow or use of flags.
I can order around my personal bodyguard and the close units next to me.
I can set the formation and inital orders of my soldiers.

But I can't order companies on the other side of the map to do things lightning fast!
I don't have a radar or a UAV. I can't see the the other guys army close up. So camera restriction is on.

• So rules and style:

1. In the battlefield AI controls your army. You play with General camera! You can only control those units that are near. 50 meters.
Group your army and let AI take command over it. You can give the general attack order just by clicking the enemy frontline. Army actually acts like the enemies and moves in formation untill in charging range and then they charge. Sometimes they act stupid though... But battle is chaos not everyone is a brilliant tactician. Some are just ambitious middle class citizens. Some are brave Knights. Some are impetious nobles or fanatical knights of the order.

2. Autoresolve battles that you can't take part of. You aren't there to take command. Its god's decision from now on.

3. Know your family and yourself. Know them personally, live them. Focus your attentiont to your family characters. These are basicly the only people you are interested. Use them. Controlling other generals is not allowed (Moving orders only). Only your family... your blood. Or you can just be you, the king. I also choose to control family members who are pure blooded royalty not some hero or noble picked up along the way. Some more action and knowing my family better and losing them creates some feeling.

4. Every royalty (family member) should have an army or a few hundred of knights with him or some sort of personal army. This way they become more personal. You actually remember the person of your family and the knights that follow him around. Those are the knights that fight with you on the field.

• Personal experience:

Real Generals nightmare.

I have tried playing like this and its like new game for me. I play with general camera and now I really have to think were I go. I can't just go away from my army... it will ROUT! and it HAS!. I have been decimated not just once. And I call decimation where you lose +50% of your army. My army sometimes has barely survived and my armor is covered with blood all the time barely surviving the battles. I have had to run away to safety behind my lines and still I'm in grave danger... every knight hates crossbowmen and they shoot at me over my infantryline.

No more clear victories with 5-10% casualties. You will have to think to even get only 30% casualties.

So I the battle:

I start with moving my army slowly into position and into the range of my enemy and bombard them with artillery and archers if this is possible. Options after ammo is depleted?

I can stay behind my army and:

1. Control the formation of my army and position of my army.
2. Control my archers and give them targets.
3. Order my artillery.
4. Boost the morale of my infanrty and guide them if I'm near.

or...

1. I can take control of the knights and order them into a line and charge the enemy head on (Its fun when you'r in the middle of the charge of hunders of knights, You might get killed.)
2. I can order my knights to follow me and charge the enemies knights head on taking them out.
3. If Im still alive after charging the enemies heavy cavalry I can take my knights with me on a flanking manouver and hit the enemies annoying archer or hit his infantry on the back or even hunt down the general himself. But beware your're armies morale is at stake. They WILL rout if not taken care of.

So you can stay and boost your men and order them closely running behind the line. Or take control of those impetious noble knights and take them into the carnage and see if you can live through it. You can't micromanage every heavy cavalries charge unless your with them. You will get bloody.

In campaign map there isnt much new figured out yet IMO. Except you better have good garrisons and generals in your frontier town or they will get captured since you can only autoresolve the battles if your not there yourself. And keep spies, assasins and monks with you when you travel or are you not pious man in these times?

I hope I didn't write this all for nothing. I hope you try and get some feeling instead of stack massproduction with nameless generals. Try custom battle with it. Try something new and report back here ASAP. Other kings are waiting. One atleast.

Give some feedback how you liked the article or ideas how to create some roleplaying stuff and depth into this game so we can get really deep into medieval carnage. Medieval times are definently not over.

[modog]

oooh... might try this!!! I already kind of do the role-playing thing a bit. I tend to pick up the thread for more than just the king though - maybe sponsor a random family member and try to train him up and follow him throughout his life. SS is particularly good for this i reckons. +rep sir

[Julius Barca the Great]

Very interesting idea, would definitely make battle more difficult. Though it will be fun to try for role playing purposes.

[Ratbag]

I started a SS6.2 RC/RR Early Era English campaign. I gathered the English army and ordered my son Henry to march for Caernarfon, meanwhile I ordered my other son to gather the French garrison and head for Rennes.. Basically what I would do in any English campaign. The main difference is that by autoresolving I lost a fair share of my army and the French are breathing down my neck. I married off my daughter to the Scottish so at least those borders would be safe. I also arranged for a marriage between Duke Henry and an Argonese princes in hope for support in the inevitable war that is to come with France..

Entertaining to say the least.

[Head of the Heavy Chargers]

So I did a little battle for you so you can see how bad all can go seriously.

A young portugese baron with a good army was attacked by a large moorish force. Easy fight with heavy troops with good morale against moorish scum.

The young baron had a nice army and a good position slightly uphill and everyone was in a good formation. 2 battalions of knights were at his personal command and would follow him where ever the baron chose to go.

Picture 1.



Army is in a good formation. 3 line deep with 2 first lines were spears and behind them light and heavy swordsmen. Archers and mangonels provided artillery support and. One knight battalion and 2 jinettes were covering the right flank. Left flank was without cavalry support, but the baron chose to cover that himself when the time came to it.

Picture 2.



Enemy comes into range. The start to pepper baron army with arrows from their Fari mounted archers. Baron fires back with 2 mangonels and 3 archers targeting them personally since he is behind them controlling them. (I havent given control to the AI yet.) Arrows exchange in the air.

Picture 3.



The enemy closes more and baron sees their cavalry wings are starting their attack on the right flank that is covered by 2 jinetes and 1 knight battalion. The enemies arabian cavalry is so fast they catch my jinetes by suprise. Fearfull of friends dying in battle and seeing nothing else is happening the baron chose to ride there and charge their flank and decimate them. But stupidly he toke himself out of the commanding position. Now he only had the nearest units at his command, the 2 knight battalions behind him.

Picture 4



After routing the enemy light cavalry quickly he realised his mistake. He toke himself out of the bigger picture for some personal glory and now the situation looked bad. Fast moorish cavalry charged his right flank and center line. He could see from his position as enemy cavalry pushed deep into his line. The baron had to get there asap. Moorish infantry had not reached the battle yet. So the baron toke a daring move and rode down with his 150 knights between the lines trying to hit the moorish lancers from behind. He gave the order for general attack to start and the infantry lines started to engage. He managed to fast enough to engage the enemy lancers and routed them before enemy infantry charged his knights rear. At this point all control off the battle was lost. The baron had only control of his loyal knights and did not have any idea of what was going on except that his lines were again charged and 2 sword battalions were decimated and wavering.

Picture 5.



Thing were looking bad. Morale was crumbling and lines were pressed hard. All forces committed to the fight the baron ran away from the battle only to gather some momentum for his cavalry. He hoped his lines would not rout under the moorish infantry and cavalry pressure. He ordered his cavalry to form up next to enemy infantry flank and ordered the charge personally leading in from the front. This was a poor unorganized charge, but the effect was good enough to cause moorish flank heavy casualties and rout them as they saw 150 knights hacking through their flank.

Picture 6.



Another charge was formed up hastily and moorish cavalry caught portugese and pinned down barons knights. Personally leading another charge into the enemy flank and hacking them into pieces. The baron was severly wounded. Blood ran through his tabard. After a while the enemy started routing. Not fun having 3-4 knights behind ones lines charging repeatedly. A few routs became a mass rout and the battle was over with knights chasing down enemy. But this was a not a heroic victory. The baron did prove to be a good fighter, but he had much to learn about commanding an army. Half his army was lost, because of his rash decisions.



Conclusion of the barons first battle:

• Half of his army dead
• Units decimated and routed
• Total loss of control during battle when decided to countercharge the first enemy cavalry
• Toke himself out of the commanding position
• Had his lines pierced by enemy cavalry
• Own lines wavering
• No overral view of the battle
• Baron severly wounded
• Lead 3-4 charges personally

I did focus in taking pictures so that did kinda messed it up. But I should have stayed on the hill and command my army instead of getting myself into hack and slash match with the first enemy units. After I rode through the middle of the battle to the other side I had lost all view of the battle. The knights on the other flank actually had killed 150 enemies. Better than my knights, but my knights did survive.

[Jiub]

That won`t be fair, the ai computer will make real time efficient decisions in SS while you won`t do much, you`ll get your arse wipped in basically all cases. Furthermore, since the AI was improved and recieved lots of bonuses and stuff to be up for the player full frontal. Your rules makes the campaign a disaster.

Look at Frederick II`s idea about campaign challenges, they are better in my opinion. Prob more roleplaying should be an improvement but that the player decides. :

[Head of the Heavy Chargers]

I must take a look at it. I just get bored with every easy win, I like chaos and controlling that chaos is fun. I play so strategically in the campaign map so I very rarely enter a fight I cannot win.

About the AI. It is the same AI that controls your troops and enemies. Am I not right? Atleast if I just order my army group to attack the front line of the enemy my army does stay in formation and acts like the enemy and they both charge at the same time.

[Head of the Heavy Chargers]

Nice Ratbag. Perhaps next time take the trip yourself as the king.

[leseras]

Nice Ratbag. Perhaps next time take the trip yourself as the king.

First of all, keep your posts minimum, aka group everything in one posts cause multi posting is spamming. Next, I like the idea of using the general only and tried it out in custom battle. Both sides had 10k and an equal amount of soldiers:quality. However, it turned out to be ugly and I actually lost because i'm not used to this kind of warfare. Actually I'm not used to M2TW warfare that much cause I bought this game like 2 weeks ago. However, I think that this sort of "rules" make things very interesting for role-playing and you should start an AAR of this style. That would make for a very interesting story. +rep

[Ratbag]

Nice Ratbag. Perhaps next time take the trip yourself as the king.

Yeah, I'm rebuilding the French garrison and will make the trip across the channel to claim Brugges.

[Head of the Heavy Chargers]

Now your actions really matter. You can't go too far from your forces or they will rout.

Now your tactics, morale, chivalry and dread actually makes a real impact. No more birds eye view easy clicks to win. Now you have to be there to take command.

I did some testing with the friendly AI question and the AI does act like the opponent. It checks whats going on and acts accordingly like enemy AI. Cavalry charges when in range and archers pick their own targets.

I did a few huge battles where I only gave the general attack order against the enemy frontline and my units were more aggressive and toke the fight to the enemy. Tactics, formation and the timing of the general attack order were crucial and this time I didnt have any cavalry to control as I usually do.

Few experiences:

Once I broke through the enemy line with my infantry and my personal bodyguards when I found a weak spot in their lines. Too bad enemy (french) heavy cavalry outclassed mine in the flanks and I became surrounded soon and had to regroup my men and try to hold them together. I had to keep rallying them all the time untill I was mortally wounded and my men depleted. Lost that fight, but I was outclassed. Would have never happenned in normal mode .

• Staying in the command position and ordering your ranged units to fire at the start is a good tactic.
• Getting on top of a hill to get the best overview is very advantageous.
• Ordering the general charge when enemy is close to few hundred meters allows you to keep your formation better intact.
• After the order of attack is given and all front are engageing. You can hold on and control your troops and hold on to the view of the battle.
• If outnumbered it can be crucial to hold the morale or hope to outmanuever the enemy.
• You can also take you bodyguard and knights and find weak spots and seperated units and charge them with hundred knights.
• Everytime you charge and commit yourself into the battle for some glory you lose control of your army and the battle so be careful when you do it. I commit myself only after all units are attacking and there is no more reserve.
• Or you can do a quick charge with your knights and order the general charge at the same time or retreat behind the lines to take command again. You could take command of the infantry and give them targets while you take command of you knights again and manouver around the back.
• Remember that you can only control troops that are near you. Otherwise I would call it cheating. This way the battles give you different feeling depending on what you are actually commanding and doing.

I find this gamestyle revealing new tactics and formations. Not that easy anymore. Actual fear of dying hits you when you are in the midts of battle bloody and all. Thankfully scars and marks of war give hitpoints when one fights alot.

I think I need to start a AA report with my new campaign and see how that goes.

[Ratbag]

I think I need to start a AA report with my new campaign and see how that goes.

Be sure to post a link here, OK?