X-Post from Official Forums - Making small-scale battles important

**Yomamashouse** · July 31, 2012, 10:04 PM

I posted this on the official forums, but I want to see what this forum thinks.

One of the problems with the previous games was the tendency for small skirmishing armies to simply be wiped out by neighbouring fullstacks. I feel that the way in which troops movement was simulated didn't allow smaller armies to be used effectively, and the game ended up being a fullstack fight. These are some of the things I think would allow smaller armies to be used more effectively.

1 - Make armies movement points reduced in proportion to their size (of course factoring in other things like terrain and supplies as well) - basically make size a factor. This would be for standard movement as well as flight and pursuit. This seems like a basic element of logistics.

2 - Allow certain types of units reduced penalties for harsh terrain (ranger/pathfinder/huntsman type units should be able to traverse forests and snowy environments better than a full army of cavalry/infantry/supply wagons)

3 - Use the area-of-control style interception that ETW and S2TW did (they probably will but I thought I would add this in as it is important for ambushes)

4 - Allow smaller armies to move unseen through most terrain unless detected by agents or other armies on the campaign map. Make certain units better at hiding and certain units better at detecting concealed units (This would take away some of the omniscience of the player on the campaign map and would make tactical movement of troops more an element.

5 - Alter the win/lose nature of battles. This would be tricky, but as a lover of skirmishers I don't know why I "lose" when I unload hundreds of javelins and arrows into a much larger army, then retreat away. I lose few men and they lose a big chunk of their forces from my harassment. Feels like I win in my mind.

6 - Allow units to remain concealed even while moving in the battlemap, assuming they are in appropriate terrain. Detection would be based on their skill as ambushers and the ability of the enemy to detect them.

**BunnyPoopCereal** · July 31, 2012, 10:10 PM

agree with 1 the most. Not sure how number 6 can be implemented.

**AngryTitusPullo** · July 31, 2012, 10:33 PM

I wonder if CA can coded spawn units in field battles too and not just siege battles with the added units base on the location of the battle. For example if a player's full stack army attack a half stack AI in the AI's province the game game calculate the balance of the armies and gives the AI additional units base on units available on the area. This can be represented as the AI has additional villagers/reinforcement to help with the original army.

**Ichon** · July 31, 2012, 10:52 PM

Originally Posted by LestaT

I wonder if CA can coded spawn units in field battles too and not just siege battles with the added units base on the location of the battle. For example if a player's full stack army attack a half stack AI in the AI's province the game game calculate the balance of the armies and gives the AI additional units base on units available on the area. This can be represented as the AI has additional villagers/reinforcement to help with the original army.

This would be great to see as well as regions within a province contributing to the walled provincial capitol some units if they belong to the same owner.

Also I would like to see option for pursuit after battles to be optional. It seems every battle since ETW is over in 10-20 minutes(majority of them are) with 15-25 minutes of guiding the cavalry around not to hit stakes or get trapped by an AI unit that rallied. Something simple where however many operational cavalry are on the field can chase down 2x their unit numbers onto routing enemy units of the retreating army- maybe focused on the best infantry of the enemy(since cavalry can fleet quicker the pursuit cavalry would focus on the men with the best chance to have good loot or be worth a ransom). So if you kept 2 full units of 45 size cavalry alive they could pursue and slay/capture 180 enemy randomly selected from surviving enemy men. If there were two 15 size damaged cavalry alive as well that would be a further 60 for a total of 240. Generals wouldn't count. It might also be cool feature to chose between slay or capture for additional income as slaves but to slay would be 2x cavalry numbers while to capture would only be 1x so 50% more enemy would escape to fight again.

It would also be nice if those numbers could be changed slightly with traits so up to 3x enemy slain with "excellent cavalry commander" or 66% could be captured if general has "slave marketeer" trait/skill. So if a general had both the scenario above would have 360 enemy eliminated with 238 captured as slaves and 122 killed in the pursuit. If you think you can do better there is still the chance to manually control the pursuit but with reports of "huge battle" maps I just have the feeling it will take 40 minutes to pursue on those and be incredibly boring. Actually maybe I should make this its own topic.

**AngryTitusPullo** · July 31, 2012, 11:01 PM

One of the thing since first Rome until the current game is that when player choose the option to retreat instead of giving battles the unit/stack will just run randomly. I wish we can manually control where we cant to retreat the units if there's no possibility of a win. This can be use so that ambushes for example really works and great.

For example hide our own full stack of Arverni troops in the nearby forest and send 2 units of scout cavalry towards the Roman stack. Choose option to retreat from battle if attacked by Romans and retreated back towards the main stack which is hiding. If the Roman AI followed and attack then ambush battle happened.

This feature can also be use by AI to trap players. Players must have scout agents for example in the stack to sniff out ambushes.

The ability to manual retreat also helps with minimizing unimportant minor skirmishes.

**Yomamashouse** · July 31, 2012, 11:09 PM

Originally Posted by LestaT

One of the thing since first Rome until the current game is that when player choose the option to retreat instead of giving battles the unit/stack will just run randomly. I wish we can manually control where we cant to retreat the units if there's no possibility of a win. This can be use so that ambushes for example really works and great.

For example hide our own full stack of Arverni troops in the nearby forest and send 2 units of scout cavalry towards the Roman stack. Choose option to retreat from battle if attacked by Romans and retreated back towards the main stack which is hiding. If the Roman AI followed and attack then ambush battle happened.

This feature can also be use by AI to trap players. Players must have scout agents for example in the stack to sniff out ambushes.

The ability to manual retreat also helps with minimizing unimportant minor skirmishes.

This was sort of my thought. Instead of making tactics consist of smashing two fullstacks into eachother, have ambushes and luring incorporated.

Definitely have to agree on the ability to coordinate retreats.

**rikktherek** · July 31, 2012, 11:30 PM

What if there was an option to skirmish with a smaller army and the battle only involves a portion of the enemy troops. If you win, you pin the enemy in place, kind of like how some agents can do this in Shogun2. Your army would have to have a high percentage of skirmishers and light cavalry to do this. Gives a reason to skirmish.

**Ichon** · August 01, 2012, 12:40 AM

Originally Posted by rikktherek

What if there was an option to skirmish with a smaller army and the battle only involves a portion of the enemy troops. If you win, you pin the enemy in place, kind of like how some agents can do this in Shogun2. Your army would have to have a high percentage of skirmishers and light cavalry to do this. Gives a reason to skirmish.

Interesting idea... so would the skirmishing forces be equally balanced or depend on level of general or composition of skirmishers in each army or just depend on army sizes?

**rikktherek** · August 01, 2012, 09:53 AM

Originally Posted by Ichon

Interesting idea... so would the skirmishing forces be equally balanced or depend on level of general or composition of skirmishers in each army or just depend on army sizes?

Based on skirmishers and light cavalry in both armies with generals getting abilities to add more units to these skirmishes. It would certainly add variety to the battles. Now, add the ability to ambush occasionally in these situations where the attackers start very close to the defenders and it would be fantastic!

**windsupernova** · August 01, 2012, 12:48 AM

Hmmm, was thinking about this when playing some campaigns. I definitively agree that smaller stacks should be more mobile.Adding that with the ability to choose where to retreat(well IMO it should depend on how you retreated, if most of your army routed it should still be random, if you ordered an ordered withdraw you should have more control) it will add tons of strategical and tactical options.

Nice idea Man

**AngryTitusPullo** · August 01, 2012, 12:53 AM

Originally Posted by windsupernova

Hmmm, was thinking about this when playing some campaigns. I definitively agree that smaller stacks should be more mobile.Adding that with the ability to choose where to retreat(well IMO it should depend on how you retreated, if most of your army routed it should still be random, if you ordered an ordered withdraw you should have more control) it will add tons of strategical and tactical options.

Nice idea Man

Even if routed it should be towards maybe player/AI nearest town or something, not totally random.

The only thing I hate in Shogun 2 is that my ship retreated to high seas and later loses some due to attrition.

**Ichon** · August 01, 2012, 01:07 AM

Originally Posted by LestaT

Even if routed it should be towards maybe player/AI nearest town or something, not totally random.

The only thing I hate in Shogun 2 is that my ship retreated to high seas and later loses some due to attrition.

Yes the retreat mechanics seemed arbitrary and crazy much of the time. Especially when retreating from battle into enemy territory when path to friendly territory is wide open. Maybe at least make retreat direction controllable if a general survives the battle. If all the commanders are dead then the soldiers might retreat into enemy territory to attempt to loot or in fear of going home dishonored/poor.

**Voodo chile** · August 01, 2012, 01:08 AM

If any 1 of those could only be implimented, control over retreat. I hate it when you are just over the border of enemy lands and you retreat instead of taking that risk, but instead, your guys retreat further into enemy territory right into the hands of even bigger armies

Horse archer factions could work aswell in more of a skirmish role. It would add the ability for smaller nations to properly harass larger nations by doing quick raids and avoiding direct confrontations - picking your own battles when it suits you

**Modestus** · August 01, 2012, 01:55 AM

1\ With the recruitment of legions\Armies it would seem CA is heading in the opposite direction and wants sizeable battles involving full stacks of balanced armies.

2\ You could end up with a lot of AI raiding parties being used ineffectively and becoming a pain in the ass for the player rather then a useful tool for the AI.

I can see were your coming from but I see it as a waste of time to try and implement this , its hard enough to get the AI to use large armies well without having it controlling a load of small raids, I can see Rome being besieged by two units of archer cavalry.

**AngryTitusPullo** · August 01, 2012, 03:41 AM

Originally Posted by Modestus

I can see were your coming from but I see it as a waste of time to try and implement this , its hard enough to get the AI to use large armies well without having it controlling a load of small raids, I can see Rome being besieged by two units of archer cavalry.

Don't exactly remeber WTW & NTW but for Shogun 2 that's no longer seems to be the case except when I have no units garrisoning the castle. The only thing is the AI IIRC does not takle account the spawn garrison units so they most of the time outnumbered.

I'm sure Rome 2 will be much better in this.