Previewing terrain - ground of your choice

**Kaap** · July 12, 2012, 05:06 PM

As a pure defensive player one of the things that bugged me more often is that it's often hard to find ground of your choice to give battle on. Currently the only real bypass is to put your stack on a bridge, than you do know how about the map is going to be. This has lead me to a playstyle that I will, in 99% of the cases, place a stack on a bridge and wait for the AI to attack me, putting me in the more favorable position.

More than often generals in time choose the ground they wanted to battle on. Surely, any ground is possible to fight on but commanders would always, when possible, fight on ground they'd see fit that would put them in the most favorable position possible.

I would really love to be able to see a preview of the terrain you can place your stack on, or where your stack is currently placed. Explore the battlefield and choose where you want to deploy. Yes, the current games always had the option to deploy your troops but you had no influence about where on the map you would be placed.

That is what I mean. An option to preview what the terrain is like and pick your starting position before you are attacked. If the ground is not really to your liking, you could always reposition your army.

Now ofcourse this can give you a great advantage, but the other side of the coin is that when you are attacking, you do not have that option.

I know this suggestion probally wont come into R2:TW but I guess it's worth to throw up the idea and see what you guys think.

Curious to see what you guys think

**Akrotatos** · July 12, 2012, 05:14 PM

Yeah if I put my army on a mountain I expect to find it on a damn mountain!

**Kaap** · July 12, 2012, 05:18 PM

Originally Posted by Akrotatos

Yeah if I put my army on a mountain I expect to find it on a damn mountain!

Well, not even that. If I position on a mountain I expect to be on top of the hill. Not the random factor where I end up in the valley and the opponent on the high ground.

That's what I'm after

**Steve Holt** · July 12, 2012, 05:34 PM

I think the best thing to do would be at the start of every battle, there should be a side allocated as the victors of maneuvering, this could be random but heavily favoured by command. The person that wins this can choose the battlefield of their choice out of a fee generated based on the location of the armies

**MagicCuboid** · July 12, 2012, 05:40 PM

I agree that I definitely would like for the campaign map to more clearly illustrate what the resultant battle map will look like, but as far as picking precisely where on that map you get to place your army, well... maybe. Maybe if you leave your army still for a turn and become "entrenched" you should be able to pick a good spot. I like the idea but I think its employment would only benefit the player, and not the AI.

**Moorish guy** · July 12, 2012, 06:00 PM

? I've never had this problem your talkn about, If I got into trouble all I gotta do is move my army on the campagin map near some mountians or a gorge and then in the deployment phase put them at the highest point possible, whats the problem?

**Rorarii** · July 12, 2012, 06:10 PM

Originally Posted by Kaap

As a pure defensive player one of the things that bugged me more often is that it's often hard to find ground of your choice to give battle on. Currently the only real bypass is to put your stack on a bridge, than you do know how about the map is going to be. This has lead me to a playstyle that I will, in 99% of the cases, place a stack on a bridge and wait for the AI to attack me, putting me in the more favorable position.

More than often generals in time choose the ground they wanted to battle on. Surely, any ground is possible to fight on but commanders would always, when possible, fight on ground they'd see fit that would put them in the most favorable position possible.

I would really love to be able to see a preview of the terrain you can place your stack on, or where your stack is currently placed. Explore the battlefield and choose where you want to deploy. Yes, the current games always had the option to deploy your troops but you had no influence about where on the map you would be placed.

That is what I mean. An option to preview what the terrain is like and pick your starting position before you are attacked. If the ground is not really to your liking, you could always reposition your army.

Now ofcourse this can give you a great advantage, but the other side of the coin is that when you are attacking, you do not have that option.

I know this suggestion probally wont come into R2:TW but I guess it's worth to throw up the idea and see what you guys think.

Curious to see what you guys think

Agree! but that would mean some link between strategic and tactical maps, that is NOT a small issue .. you'd need to ask Jack whether this will be the case.

It is important to know your terrain, as the Duke of Wellington said about the area of waterloo - "I reviewed this region in past and kept it in my pocket!"

R

**Ichon** · July 12, 2012, 07:58 PM

Defender should get first pick of battle terrain and attacker 2nd modified by skill of commander so some hotly skilled commanders might get first pick. It would also help if there were more than 2 types of terrain that mattered. With only hill or forest making much difference in battles it barely matters. Make rivers, streams, marsh, brush, rocks, etc be present and it actually matters.

**Steve Holt** · July 13, 2012, 12:58 AM

I remember if there was a forest on the battle map in Rome I, I would just quit straight away, they were that bad

**Ichon** · July 13, 2012, 01:15 AM

Originally Posted by Steve Holt

I remember if there was a forest on the battle map in Rome I, I would just quit straight away, they were that bad

You missed out on some epic battles. Charging lost Romans in the forests or ambushing a Pontic column with Hastati was really fun. Probably my favorite battles in RTW.

**SinerAthin** · July 13, 2012, 02:13 AM

I absolutely agree, I really want to see the battlemaps before commencing!

I mean, what am I paying all my spies for?

If this is the kind of work they do, I'd be better off using their corpses as battlements!