Night Battles?

[Mathieu Of Belgium]

Hey I've now played for several hours and trained several high ranking generals. None of them, however, were capable to fight at night.
Is there something that I do wrong or is the trait that unlocks night battles a random one?
(I'm playing as the Geats btw)

[legate]

It'll be a DLC lol

[Four_FUN]

Hey I've now played for several hours and trained several high ranking generals. None of them, however, were capable to fight at night.
Is there something that I do wrong or is the trait that unlocks night battles a random one?
(I'm playing as the Geats btw)

You need a general with high enough cunning (6 or 7 I think), and then they become available. Its all a little obscure...

[Mathieu Of Belgium]

You need a general with high enough cunning (6 or 7 I think), and then they become available. Its all a little obscure...

Thanks

[Monglor]

Thanks for that, I was going to ask the same thing. Wondered if they'd been taken out because they'd be obscenely powerful on the Huns if they worked like in the other games, allowing you to pick off single stacks.

[Bang]

played maybe 5 night battles and all of them didnt seem light night battles.moon is so bright.its like you play on cloudy day.
there is no dark on night battles

[GussieFinkNottle]

played maybe 5 night battles and all of them didnt seem light night battles.moon is so bright.its like you play on cloudy day.
there is no dark on night battles

Hah I had the opposite, it was pitch black and I could barely see a thing, I had to play in the day. Perhaps this is the fault of each of our gamma and brightness settings and not CA, or perhaps it genuinely does vary.

[Gwayn]

Hah I had the opposite, it was pitch black and I could barely see a thing, I had to play in the day. Perhaps this is the fault of each of our gamma and brightness settings and not CA, or perhaps it genuinely does vary.

Same for me, nights are very dark. Funnily enough, my Rome 2 felt way too bright when I played it yesterday.
But night battle are really amazing, even more so for the reason Slaists mentions. Ambushing on campaign and
battle map gets a really nice dimension thanks to it.

[the lightning legion]

and there is also only one torch in each unit producing light which isn't enough even if they took out the spotlights

[Slaists]

I think, they've made it so that only generals talented in cunning can achieve this ability: just to add some variety through the primary trait a general gets. You can get to 6 cunning with a general who has a primary trait as cunning (or gets an ancillary, a wife or battle trait boosting cunning), but you won't get 6 cunning for all generals.

[econ21]

You can get to 6 cunning with a general who has a primary trait as cunning (or gets an ancillary, a wife or battle trait boosting cunning), but you won't get 6 cunning for all generals.

As Romans at least, it's something that usually comes with a high rank general if you go for the "ultimate" talent "vir illustris".

New generals typically start with 3 cunning.

You can pick up 2 cunning from two points in Master planner.

Then when you get to high rank, you can get up to two points in cunning from vir illustris.

With my generals, I usually beeline vanguard as it gives +20% campaign movement speed. This requires filling out most of the right hand, combat focussed, branch of the skills tree. You need vanguard for vir illustris anyway and once you have move speed, going for vir illustris via the middle branch of the tree seems the most useful upgrade path for combat (primarily because the cunning bonus should unlock night battles). The other skills seem more oriented around governors.

[Slaists]

As Romans at least, it's something that usually comes with a high rank general if you go for the "ultimate" talent "vir illustris".

New generals typically start with 3 cunning.

You can pick up 2 cunning from two points in Master planner.

Then when you get to high rank, you can get up to two points in cunning from vir illustris.

With my generals, I usually beeline vanguard as it gives +20% campaign movement speed. This requires filling out most of the right hand, combat focussed, branch of the skills tree. You need vanguard for vir illustris anyway and once you have move speed, going for vir illustris via the middle branch of the tree seems the most useful upgrade path for combat (primarily because the cunning bonus should unlock night battles). The other skills seem more oriented around governors.

Thought you need to spend points in all branches (left, middle and right) to get to vir illustris. Then again, I have not played with Romans yet.

Also, I usually max out all the starting attribute skills (middle tree) too (the ones boosting authority, zeal & cunning) just to insure the general does not start to give nasty debuffs to the army in case of an accident (maimed, becoming arrogant, etc.) as those tend to lower the attributes.

This brings me to remember there is a multi-step adoption mission that results in a character joining your roster who has a whooping 10 in cunning off the bat, giving you a night-battle general outright. I forgot what mission that exactly was though.

[econ21]

Thought you need to spend points in all branches (left, middle and right) to get to vir illustris.

Yes, you are right. Checking in game, vir illustris is really demanding. My best general, rank 8 or so, has it but you pretty much have to put points in every skill to get it.

[fokke85]

I think the system actually works better in Attila. 3 points or lower in Authority, Cunning or Zeal and you actually get penalty's for stuff like PO, integrity, movement range, etc. After that it goes up and if you have six points in cunning you can fight the night battles. For Authority it is increased command radius and for Zeal you get an increased cool down for special abilities

[Bramborough]

Another nice effect of boosting Cunning in generals is that it lowers army upkeep cost.

Also probably worth mentioning, agents also have new abilities which unlock at 6 points:

6 Authority - +20% critical success chance,
6 Cunning = +50% line of sight,
6 Zeal = +25% campaign movement range.

With the agents' skill trees providing more attribute skill points than the generals', it's pretty common to get an agent to 6 points in two of the three areas...but not all three.

[Slaists]

One thing about night battles: you better have one of the scout type cavalry units in your army. AI can ambush you 2 feet in front of your nose otherwise, especially in an area with trees.