Battle lines and slippery soldiers?

[Nack]

Does anyone else think that the problem with battle lines (well, the lack of them) and troop blobbing is caused by the way individual soldiers occupy space? I mean, ever since Empire, I've noticed that units go through other units far more dynamically. Normally this is good, but in formation centric games like Rome 2, it completly ruins the way battles work.

For instance, I was defending a town with a few hoplite units. At one point, I made 2 of them stand next to each other in hoplite formation so they could defend and block one of the roads. The AI proceeded to rush a unit THROUGH my hoplites to capture the victory point, and they did. They actually ignored how tightly packed my troops were and just ran through them without losing many men. I don't think that should be happening. This can be seen as well when you send 2 or 3 units to attack a single enemy. The units will usually collapse and merge with each other so much that a giant blob will be formed.

Does anyone know if this is due to the engine? Because if it isn't, then it can probably be fixed.

[krisslanza]

It's because most units don't have the Disciplined trait. So they break formation if they run/charge too far. Resulting in said blobbing.

[Hockey85]

This is not entirely true because even units with the "disciplined" trait are guilty of the infamous blobbing in RTWII. I was playing with the Romans and most of their infantry have this "disciplined" trait, but it seems to every ones dismay the "professional" Roman soldiers blob worse than any units in the game. This is currently the #1 thing making the game unplayable atm. Not only do the men break formation and blob into each other, I think another big part of the issue is how close to one another they stand in the mosh pit that forms, its like your men are glued together....

I opened up the original Rome TW to see if I could pinpoint the cause of the blobbing, and aside from lack of defensive mode and unit cohesion, when in a massive melee engagement goes down in the origional, the men have alot more space inbetween them that allows you to get a better idea of whats going on. It is nowhere near as sloppy or blobby.

[Nack]

I think I know what trait you're talking about. Unfortunately, roman troops which have this trait also suffer from blobbing, so it's either bugged, or CA added that trait as a sort of placebo or something.

[Revan The Great]

This is a really good observation. Units just aren't 'solid' enough and slide past one another too easily and, come to think of it, this is something that I noticed right away since my first bayonet charge in Empire.

It should be impossible to push through a phalanx of hoplites without so severely disrupting the formation that it breaks and is slaughtered relatively quickly. The fact that the AI regularly does this in siege battles is often just ascribed to the AI's fixation with capture points, but clearly there's something more endemic here. The AI trying to push through a phalanx is one problem, but the fact that the AI isn't being stopped and/or completely slaughtered in its attempt is another failure altogether. If the AI can exploit a flaw in phalanx mechanics/unit cohesion unintentionally, then an unsportsmanlike player could do so intentionally in multiplayer.

[temporaryname1]

They sure as hell felt slippery when my elephants tossed around your phalanx

[monsterfurby]

I agree that this is a good observation, I hadn't thought of it like that but now that you mention it, that's exactly what I observe. Where individual soldiers would block each other's way in Rome and Medieval 2, they now basically clip through each other, which makes formations far too squishy to really have any impact.

[Modestus]

I am afraid that its Warscape, it was the same in ETW but first you had the musket firing and then the melee which because of the period it did not look too bad.

It was the same in Shogun2 and even though some people would argue it was an accurate portrayal of how people fought you had the same results not sure if there was any difference in FOTS but I would suspect not.

I knew it could never work for RTW2 and I would predict that there is no way to fix it and I don’t think CA would even try, if anyone was making a game about Rome having an ability to maintain formation in combat with solid and almost impenetrably lines would have been the basis for all of your units and then you could work down from that to create more open formations.

You don’t even have an ability to throw spears when standing still, I have no idea what CA are going to do but it looks to me that you would need to redo all of the combat and start from scratch, not going to happen.


Edit: And that’s not including the capture points which could be and seem to be the primary goal of the AI and remain so regardless of the tactical situation the AI finds itself in or the size of the opposing force which suggests the AI has no tactical awareness whatsoever.

[Vuk11]

Everyone talks about the "discipline" trait.
Yet ignores the "Formation Attack" trait.

Formation attack: Unit tries to start in formation in a melee

Under ideal circumstances this is working to a degree, phalanx vs phalanx, Some legions etc.
It just turns into a blob half of the time though as well.

That trait must be buggy or something and they just need to tweak the Phalanx/Shield wall formations too.
Buff them, allow us to passively attack while in Phalanx/ Shield wall just like in the Pike Phalanx, and stop units from doing this strange shuffle thing where the keep circling each other until they do a 180.

[Sir_Red]

The Roman lines should be the harbour wall on which the barbarian waves crash, they should hold firm and not get suckered in to stepping out of rank for 1v1s. It is clear this was too complex for CA or the engine, so that's why we have mosh pit free-for-alls where everyone breaks rank. Worse still is that ridiculous slipping bug, where soldiers seem to glide around the entire mosh pit :/

[Modestus]

Does anyone know what these do? are they under the hood and simply give a unit a bonus during the combat calculations? You could have these advantages for your unit but you would not see it represented on the screen because at that stage the unit animations have already created a mess.

[Nack]

Yes, I was wondering the same thing. Still, I've noticed that pikemen in particular tend to soooomewhat keep their formation intact, maybe there's something we can take from them and add it to the other units?

[Greve Af Göteborg]

Unit collision is very in the warscape engine apparently.

[Mortarion]

Didn't people ask CA for units not to be pretty much 2 sides, but actually end up mixing with the enemy unit? And now you don't like it?

[Slaists]

Well, the discipline argument is an interesting one. Do we see tests done on disciplined units. Do those hold lines well? If so, the inability of undisciplined units to hold line actually would make sense. Roman type legionaries had the advantage against barbarian types in that department.

[Nack]

Well, the discipline argument is an interesting one. Do we see tests done on disciplined units. Do those hold lines well? If so, the inability of undisciplined units to hold line actually would make sense. Roman type legionaries had the advantage against barbarian types in that department.

Well, like I said, Hastati and Princepes (which have this trait) also behave like a blob, so it's either a bugged trait, or one that does nothing at all (except maybe give some numerical bonuses in combat).

[Orkfaeller]

I dont own the game yet, so I cant comment to mutch on it, but it was omething I noticed in some videos I saw.Even here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGFcUWzzO-8#t=3m40s when those Spartans at the right just suddenly leave their formation to charge into the enemy lines without an attack order.

[krisslanza]

I was mistaken earlier, it's the "Formation Attack". And, at least for me, my hastati/principes have always maintained formation. If I charge them as a block, they stay as one. Disciplined, at least according to the tooltip, just makes the unit more likely to recover from routing and to not be effected if the general dies.

This is probably a big reason the battles feel very fast - the Roman infantry are pretty much unstoppable in the early and mid-game to other infantry.