Revise the Battles
To begin, this is a topic I've wanted to start for a pretty long time. Due to the complexity of the issue, it just hasn't happened yet, until now. This topic concerns the battle mechanics and general design thereof in a small attempt to raise some sort of awareness that, while it may be considered acceptable by some, this part of the game is nowhere near its true potential.
While old at this point, games like Rome and Medieval 2 offer some excellent reference material to what can and has been achieved in the series, and moreover what should have been achieved in Rome 2. Some aspects are, in my opinion, more secondary, while others are primary and essential for enjoyable, mildly authentic battles. This will be explained in greater detail below - but it's only my own opinion on the matter.
I'll start by listing what I consider primary issues in Rome 2 battles, elements that seem to have carried over to Attila.
The health system is undoubtedly what must come first on this list. It is one of the single most apparent changes from previous games and has had a very real impact on how battles are played - and so not for the better. The bottom line idea sounds fair enough, soldiers have a little variation in how many hits they can sustain before getting knocked out of combat. Elite units typically have more health, while more basic units have lower health. There are numerous problems with this concept though, both on the theoretical part as well as the result it has on battles. To get to the point, I'll only address the latter of the two - the combat impact it has, because that's what matters the most.
You do not have to look for very long in a battle to notice what effect charges in particular have on units. Not uncommonly, a cavalry charge will inflict little to no casualties on decently armoured units. In turn, the cavalry will suffer no casualties at all, be it a very light or very heavy unit. Suffice to say, there is something fundamentally wrong with this. It gives the impression that forces are not involved and makes units and their actions feel very abstract. I'll give you another two examples on this matter. Infantry charging right into a pike wall renders no casualties whatsoever, for the attackers. Perhaps the single most disturbing scenario - which happens to be one of the most frequent ones - is how projectiles are not sufficiently deadly to take down soldiers on the first volleys. They may take out very scarcely armoured soldiers by the first volley, but will not do so against other, more common units. Instead, casualties very quickly mount over time and after perhaps a third of the ammo has been spent, a missile unit will start dealing reasonably consistent - and extremely high - damage. Up until that point, the casualties taken are very inconsistent. Just like with cavalry charges, it makes projectiles feel abstract, even as though they aren't initially there. It also has a serious impact on the balance.
An additional thing that likely was designed the way it was so it would match the high health, is the unit statistics. Difficult to read from, hard to memorize due to excessive amounts of digits and little consistency, this is perhaps one of the worst designed parts of the battles. It does not fulfill the purpose it should in an acceptable way - allowing you to get a solid but quick idea on how a unit will perform relative to another unit in a given scenario.
My suggested solution is to revise this fundamental part of the battles, either returning to the classical (pre-Rome 2) combat or figure out something that gives yet better results. As it stands now, it's very frankly not a good or even decent system but puts the combat part of the game as the least compelling in the entire series.
Then there are, as mentioned previously, things that I personally consider to be more secondary - but nevertheless relevant. These are unit collision, cohesion, pushing, blobbing and unit arrangements. A quick breakdown;
Unit collision is a mechanic I believe most people are well familiar with - it essentially has units stop before crashing together in an uncomprehensible compact mess. This is poorly implemented in all titles since Empire, but is more apparent when shields are involved and units are up to eight ranks deep, as opposed to a mere two or three in the games set in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Cohesion is another thing that has been extremely poorly implemented, especially when considering that it worked well in Rome. When not using formation attack - an attribute which a fair deal of units simply don't have - there is often a general lack of cohesion within the own unit. A rather common sight is units forming up almost in a triangular shape while in combat, with a tip at the rear of the unit.
Pushing - simply not present, despite the fact that it would add a whole lot to battles like it did in the original game, BI and Medieval 2/Kingdoms. Whether Attila will include this, I don't know, but it doesn't seem like it from the previews.
Blobbing is more of an issue that is a product of other mechanics, such as formation attack (causing units to stack up) and low radius for units. Two obvious solutions here would be to make - assuming formation attack (or an equivalent) is implemented in Attila - the attribute disabled by default, as it is the AI that cannot handle it. The other solution is for the radius, simply increasing it will give each soldier better space and reduce clipping.
Then finally, unit arrangements. Truth to be told, this is a small beef I have with Rome 2, but one nonetheless. Rome and Medieval 2 were filled with amazing diversity when it came to how units were arranged and how the rank to rank and file to file spacing variated. Units felt unique based on that alone. For example, basic archers would have a very loose pattern, elite archers a regular pattern and Cretan archers their own, specific (and perhaps exaggerated) spacing. There was even a difference between hastati and principes. On this area, it would be nice to see CA put some actual effort in diversifying troops better, based on culture, armament, training and other factors. It takes little effort but does a huge job of diversifying and enhancing the battles.
It is my hope that at least some of these things will be considered as changes for the battles in Attila. It has great potential, the problem is that little actual thought or effort has been invested in improving the combat. This may well change before release - I certainly hope it will. But with just a month until then, it feels unlikely at the same time. Revising the combat is necessary to keep a lot of players interested, as a lot of replayability value is in multiplayer battles. As it stands now, it's not even remotely on par with a game ten years old - and unfortunately, has no redeeming qualities at all in Rome 2. It's discouraging to see Attila largely keeping this design.
Anyway, thanks for reading if you got through the wall of text.
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Originally Posted by damien007
