One humble suggestion

[Sultan AdDilshad]

http://w1.877.telia.com/~u87739403/Dilshad.jpg

Hi all http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

I have read in a topic where people discussed if there should be any mobile Artilleries in the game, and In my humble opinion I think that would be great.
Let me explain ...

If you could then you would feel more comfortable with buying artilleries, you see, now if one has bought artilleries and the opponent gets out of their reach then they haven`t contributed anything to the battle field. (Perhaps as a work of art for the opponent to admire http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

But my suggestion differs from many others in that I dont believe that 12 poor maintenance men would like to carry the burden on their own, it gets especially difficult when the 12 men suffers casualties aswell.

So why not let units combine each others strength`s to achieve some efficiency ?
Perhaps the horse units could be clicked on the artillery piece in order to connect with it and then draw the carrage away to a desired spot fast and efficient.
I realise that frequent use of this action will tire your horses but that is a good thing.
That is, it puts some balance in the strategy and helps to avoid battles to turn in to a tank battle.

Well it was only an idea but I would be glad if you would like to discuss the idea of combining troops, perhaps you can even come up with a better example of this idea .

Sincerely Dilshad, Sultan of The Ayyubids

[Guarda]

the idia of a mobil artilary is very good, rather than become an obsolet unit whem the batle is far way it could bring more dynamic to the batle, and it whoul be great if they could hide in trees.
ohter thing that it woul be great is to have the option that whem the enemy retret to his castle, the player could chase him and asalt the castle, in the same year/turn.

[Gregoshi]

CA addressed this issue recently. The heavy artillery was put in for sieges. The considered the question of making them mobile, but there were programming issues with doing this and, for the most part, historically these artillery pieces were static once set up. Therefore they felt comfortable in leaving them immobile.

Sultan AdDilshad welcome to the Org.

[Shahed]

Hiya

Sultan Dilshad Welcome Aboard http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

I think those are great suggestions. I'd love to see mobile artillery in the game, combining units would be great too.

Hmm http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif

How about if you cound combine units of the battlefield e.g you have units of different numerical strengths on the field, when you want to maintain a hill defence just combine 2 chiv sarge units into one to make a 200 man unit.
I think it would be great if you could select the size of the unit before the battle begins e.g platoon, brigade, battalion, regiment (along those lines), and ideally once the battle starts you could either merge units or split them. This would be realistic no ?
So if you have a 40 Steppe cav unit but need to chase 2 small units of routing archers, you could split them up into 20 each (platoon ?).

What do you guys think ? Let's hope we see some of this in TW3. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[RunAway!!]

I wouldn't mind being able to split units up; for the most part, every single light cavalry unit in my armies are half strength or below. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif Its just a waste having 40 in a unit whose main purpose is running down archers, war machines, and the cowards that flee before my infantry. As for combining units, I suppose it wouldn't hurt; except those units you make would be very unwieldy. What I would most like to see is some sort of auto rebuild feature; where every turn, if you had a unit in a province that was below full strength; the unit would automatically be placed on the build list to refit.

[Shahed]

yes indeed large units would be extremely unwieldy. I would like an auto rebuild feature too. Good Idea.

[Mr Frost]

Unweildly ... not always : Byzantium recieves a 80 man Kataphractoi unit {on default unit sizes} at the start of Paladins' 1092 mod and it is a sledgehammer whilst it lasts and yet still quite usable http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Would be interesting the optios mentioned in this thread .

[Juan Madsen]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif if an option is given to combine units when in the field of battle then it is up to each player to decide if large units of 200 or 300 men are unweildy or not. It would add more alternatives to tactics.

However, such a feature is possibly not easy to implement.

[Shahed]

A combine unit feature, and the possibility to train units at different numerical stregths would be great, unwieldy or not. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Nikitas]

I like the combining/splitting units idea as it will add some more tactical options. But I do not agree with the mobile artilery.

First, the later game artilery, like the serpintine for example, can already hit the whole field, with hills being the only obstruction.

Second, in my experience cannons are so inaccurate against regular units that I don't see the advantage of committing regular units to move the cannons. The disadvantages are that you will have one less unit available to defend and/or attack and, if this is implimented, the unit will become tired and not as effective.

Finally, as Gregoshi already pointed out, artillery was generally static. I do realize that some history has been sacrificed in making this game, but keeping the artillery static is a simple way to adhere to history, not make sacrifices unless they are absolutely necessary.

[Shahed]

Hiya http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Nikitas. Welcome to the Org. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
I'd like to share my thoughts based on facts and evaluation as best as I can.

Static Artillery:
Indeed in that time period artillery was largely static. If you notice this is well represented in the bombard, mortar, trebuchet, mangonel. These are static artillery pieces. They certainly cud not be moved in battle unless there was enough time to move and then remount them into firing position. That's unlikely to work in MTW, since we do not have that much time, usually. However, the canon type artillery in MTW was mobile and could be realtively easily redeployed. Since this is the case, then it would be historically accurate to be able to redeploy your serpentine, as it always had wheels for this purpose, anyway. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Historically though in this time period, to the best of my knowledge, artillery was indeed largely static.
It would help the game to be able to move wheeable artillery pieces, let me illustrate by example:

Sometimes 1 defender has artillery but he has to deploy it and then remains fixed around the artillery. The initial deployment position may not be the best place on the map to deploy the arty, but you are limited to deploy within your deployment radius and thus have to deploy in the best place within the deployment radius. This means that your allies then have to reposition around you since your arty is immobile, and they may also have to deploy near your not so perfect arty position. Being able to move the guns would help since you could then commit units (or if they are self propelled even better http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif ) to move the arty onto the best position for the battery to fire from (e.g where there is no hill obstruction), in the initial stages of battle when you do have time to do so. Of course they arty should move slowly so it is unfeasable, and unrealistic to move it around all the time.

Accuracy of artillery:
In my experience artillery is inaccurate in MTW. Perhaps accurately so. there are a couple of things that lead me to believe that arty in MTW is not as bad as is generally accepted.

1.The amount of resentment towards artillery.
This indicates that it does kill or else ppl would not be so anti-arty http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
2.The valor spent on arty and missile units is far less than the valor allocated to other branches of the army.

In a SP campaign I am playing at the moment I have not yet hit the Late era but close. Anyway all my defensive armies have 4 catapults. In one of these defensive armies all 3 catapults are valor 9 and 1 is valor 10. Trust me those cats kill an avg of 50-60 men each on a bad day. On good battles they can kill upto 90-100 men. That is fairly good, as good if not better that most valor 4 h2h units.

In MP, I always have Valor 4 arty if florins permit, otherwise arty and missile units get fair allocation of funds in my MP armies. I have noticed that valor does marginally increase accuracy. Valor 4 arty is more accurate than v2 or v0 arty for sure.

Another way to combat inaccuracy is thru numbers. If you take 8 serpentines they will kill becoz even if they miss their target they do hit another target. Also there is the bounce effect so the projectile bounces off and can kill an unintended target.
now if you are wondering who is going to compensate for the 8 h2h units u did not take, the answer is one of your allies. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif I have succesfully teamed up on MP so that my army is the missile and artillery component and my ally's is the cavalry and h2h component of our combined force. In the best of this type of combined arms force battles, I lost 0 men and killed 500. Out of those kills approximately half can be attributed to serpentine kills (in that battle). The rest to Naptha and Archer kills. Naptha is another underated weapon...topic for another thread.

Wishing you great games

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EDIT: Deleted historical battle info as I could no longer find the name of the battle http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif and thus cud provide no useful reference. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Balrog]

Quote[/b] (SeljukSinan @ Dec. 11 2002,17:41)]A combine unit feature, and the possibility to train units at different numerical stregths would be great, unwieldy or not. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif
I like this idea also.. perhaps instead of limiting the number of units (16) per battle field the limit could be total units (1600)