What causes 90% town battles?

[Mitch the Great]

I think what causes 90% town battles is the fact that cities and towns are in close proximity to each other and that units movement range is huge, it would only take 1 turn to get to the next settlement thus no unit armies are stuck in the middle of nowhere vulnerable to counter attack plus the fact that there is a unit army limit. that's 3 reasons, what do you think?

[Pedalos]

For me it's not really 90% town battles since I try to avoid fighting army + garrison. I instead try to pick a fight with the army first and then finish off the town.

[Mitch the Great]

For me it's not really 90% town battles since I try to avoid fighting army + garrison. I instead try to pick a fight with the army first and then finish off the town.

i guess that's true if you are on war with that faction, then again its gonna be your city or town. plus they attack like 2 army units against 1.

[Wicked Moose]

I'd say it is because every siege (be it a walled or unwalled town) leads to an assault instead of starving/building equipment.
In Roma Serructum 2 unit movement points are way higher and town are closer to eachother, yet I have less town battles.
The usual procedure there is: army 1 lays siege to (walled) town, army 2 arrives to relieve the siege, resulting in a field battle between armies 1 and 2.

What you need according to me for reducing the number of town battles:
- an AI that is smart enough to starve a city instead of doing suicidal attacks (especially since it doesn't know how to actually assault a city)
- lots of movement points so your defending armies can move to besieged towns quick enough (can be modded)
- walls around all towns and cities

[Jester]

Medieval2 was the worst in that respect imo.

actually, i think this is one of the very very few things which are better in R2

[Humble Warrior]

Medieval2 was the worst in that respect imo.

actually, i think this is one of the very very few things which are better in R2

I`ve been here long enough not to be surprised any more, but what you write here is so untrue it`s a travesty. Seriously, if this were a court of Law I`d demand you prove this statement that RTW2 sieges are better than MTW2 sieges before a jury and you`d be laughed out in seconds. Meh, I wouldn`t need a jury, just a room full of people and a couple of vids of the sieges would do.

[Ironhorse]

Medieval2 was the worst in that respect imo.

actually, i think this is one of the very very few things which are better in R2

But that went away with at least one of the mods, I am thinking of Stainless Steel which pretty much doubled the map size. Simply adding more space to travel between cities got rid of constant city battles.

[VINC.XXIII]

Sorry man, but in MTW2 sieges were working at least, and you can even mod the behavior of AI when its question to make a sally.

My favourite MTW2 code: <ai>
<sally_att_str_modifier float="2.6"/>
</ai>
With that code, when your forces are averagely equal(numbers and quality), your enemy sallies from the city, they don't die stupidly cause to attrition while they're enough numerous to fight you.
With Germanicus AI its give pretty nice battles, correct deployment and soon. Nothing to see with actual Rome2 sieges...

"- walls around all towns and cities"
the decent minimum for at least all cities that historically were walled.

[Mitch the Great]

Sorry man, but in MTW2 sieges were working at least, and you can even mod the behavior of AI when its question to make a sally.

My favourite MTW2 code: <ai>
<sally_att_str_modifier float="2.6"/>
</ai>
With that code, when your forces are averagely equal(numbers and quality), your enemy sallies from the city, they don't die stupidly cause to attrition while they're enough numerous to fight you.
With Germanicus AI its give pretty nice battles, correct deployment and soon. Nothing to see with actual Rome2 sieges...

"- walls around all towns and cities"
the decent minimum for at least all cities that historically were walled.

yeah i would have to agree on that one, i wouldn't mind that in R2TW if the sieges were good but it isn't. also, decreasing unit army movement would increase turn per year making generals live longer, its kinda difficult having generals with good cunning stats for battle rhythm and only be able to use them one time coz the next turn they die.

[Jester]

i m afraid i was misunderstood.

town battles were indeed better in Med2.

i was just talking about the frequency or land battles <-> town battle ratio

also, only talking about vanilla versions for a fair comparison.

[Anna_Gein]

The problem is fairly simple. Immediate assaults and settlements at 1 turn of distance are a fearful pair. It's simple as that.

also, only talking about vanilla versions for a fair comparison.

Why ? Mods didn't changed the engine. If they avoided this problem it was just by intelligent balancing.

[Dunadd]

Anna Gein wrote

The problem is fairly simple. Immediate assaults and settlements at 1 turn of distance are a fearful pair. It's simple as that.

Good point - in the original Rome, even if using BI.exe or ALX.exe, the AI never assaulted on the first turn unless it had onagers etc (and if they had stone throwers capable of breaking down walls - which was rare - they reduced the army's movement a lot). Most armies had no artillery, so they never assaulted on the turn they began the siege - always waited a turn to build rams for stone walled settlements, or till they had siege towers for stone walled ones. That gave more chance for a relieving army to arrive and a field battle to be fought.

I don't understand why anything as basic as rams and ladders are considered technology which you need a tech advance to get in 280BC - those had been around for a long time by then - and the Hellenistic kingdoms had had massive iron plated artillery siege towers for sieges, full of bolt and stone throwers, like Demetrius the Besieger's Heliopolis by that time. Now not every faction should get that kind of advanced stuff at the start, but they should all have rams and ladders available without tech advances - and some of them should have siege towers too - and siege towers certainly shouldn't be third tier advanced tech.

[Mitch the Great]

Anna Gein wrote

Good point - in the original Rome, even if using BI.exe or ALX.exe, the AI never assaulted on the first turn unless it had onagers etc (and if they had stone throwers capable of breaking down walls - which was rare - they reduced the army's movement a lot). Most armies had no artillery, so they never assaulted on the turn they began the siege - always waited a turn to build rams for stone walled settlements, or till they had siege towers for stone walled ones. That gave more chance for a relieving army to arrive and a field battle to be fought.

I don't understand why anything as basic as rams and ladders are considered technology which you need a tech advance to get in 280BC - those had been around for a long time by then - and the Hellenistic kingdoms had had massive iron plated artillery siege towers for sieges, full of bolt and stone throwers, like Demetrius the Besieger's Heliopolis by that time. Now not every faction should get that kind of advanced stuff at the start, but they should all have rams and ladders available without tech advances - and some of them should have siege towers too - and siege towers certainly shouldn't be third tier advanced tech.

yeah, maybe because for some unknown reason they were rushed to sell R2TW without proper preparations? even then, the map itself is just not... proper? one of the best maps i can think of is ETW and S2TW where players are forced to move from their walls to save resources, but in R2TW there aren't any resources like that as promised and movement around settlements are limited because of zone of control being too huge and the map being too narrow. this isn't something to think about, just applying what worked previously. it isn't even AI related so i don't know how rushing would affect them but it did.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

Generals of this age tended to avoid risky land battles in favor of sieges so it is kinda realistic.

[Riekopo]

Generals of this age tended to avoid risky land battles in favor of sieges so it is kinda realistic.

Really? I don't think so.

[|Sith|Galvanized Iron]

Really? I don't think so.

Count number of actual army on army battles, then count the number of cities you would have to occupy to control territory then tell me which is the greater number. Yet anyway most battles of the ancient age took place becuase one of the armies were forced to do battle. Like when Caesar faced off with Pompeii, he did that becuase his army was half dead from starvation and plague or how Pompeii forced the Pontics to do battle by cutting off them off in a narrow pass, which he did becuase he feared his command would expire. In fact you will find that the reason the Romans fought battles as often as they did was becuase they were granted 1 year commands, so in order to gain some glory to use for political leverage they where forced to do battle. Which means they can not be compared with the commanders of other nations.

[Dunadd]

Count number of actual army on army battles, then count the number of cities you would have to occupy to control territory then tell me which is the greater number. Yet anyway most battles of the ancient age took place becuase one of the armies were forced to do battle. Like when Caesar faced off with Pompeii, he did that becuase his army was half dead from starvation and plague or how Pompeii forced the Pontics to do battle by cutting off them off in a narrow pass, which he did becuase he feared his command would expire. In fact you will find that the reason the Romans fought battles as often as they did was becuase they were granted 1 year commands, so in order to gain some glory to use for political leverage they where forced to do battle. Which means they can not be compared with the commanders of other nations.

But the commanders of other nations sought field battles over and over again - Phillip V of Macedon, Alexander the Great, all the successors and Successor Kings who followed them, the Carthaginians (Hannibal sought field battles all the time and didn't have only a one year command), etc.

Sometimes, like Caesar, a commander was forced to do battle - that equally means the generals challenging Caesar wanted to do battle if they forced Caesar into it.

And some generals constantly sought field battles - Hannibal, Alexander etc.

And the Romans started avoiding field battles with Hannibal after Cannae (Fabian strategy), so even though it's true Roman commanders did sometimes seek battles fast for political reasons, they sometimes did the opposite.

And even when an army was coming to try to relieve a siege the result was a field battle away from the town or city, not in it, because the besieging army was between the garrison and the army attempting to relieve it.

[Nypifisel]

Really? I don't think so.

Actually sieges were always preferable. Field encounters were extremely risky affairs and a general could loose his whole army in one afternoon, why starving the enemy army out was a better option. This have been the case for most of human history.

[Dunadd]

Actually sieges were always preferable. Field encounters were extremely risky affairs and a general could loose his whole army in one afternoon, why starving the enemy army out was a better option. This have been the case for most of human history.

Whether a siege or a field battle was preferable depended on the balance of forces in the field, potential manpower of each side, political situation etc - and different generals had different characters that made them prefer different approaches. Generals frequently preferred field battles for good reasons.

etc. e.g For Hannibal in the Second Punic War field battles were always preferable as he had a veteran high quality army that outnumbered most individual Roman forces in cavalry, but the Romans had more armies in the field and more manpower. By fighting and winning field battles he could get some of Rome's southern Italian subject allies to change sides and join him. Many Roman commanders fought him anyway for political reasons - because they only had the command for a limited time.

For Alexander the Great fighting the Persian Empire he had a better quality army but the Persians had potentially vast forces plus money to hire mercenaries. Add to this that he was a rash egotistical maniac who thought he was the son of Zeus and he sought (and got) field battles and assaulted towns rather than just besieging them to starve out the garrisons.

Phillip V before him against the Greek city states also sought and got field battles.

The Successors after Alexander frequently fought battles because to avoid battle made them look weak and could result in troops or cities defecting to their rivals.

And in any period field battles often happened when an army came to relieve a besieged garrison - against the besieging army.

So frequently there was no choice of siege or field battle - sometimes generals just had to fight field battles or lose troops and cities.

[daelin4]

The Successors after Alexander frequently fought battles because to avoid battle made them look weak and could result in troops or cities defecting to their rivals.

Got a source on this?