View Full Version : Creative Assembly 200 spearmen stabbing king who won\'t die!
britboy4321
09-17-2002, 18:10
I did a search and didn't find this anywhere else. Is there some kind of issue with this game where you can't kill a king until he has got all his reinforcements on screen?
I killed off the whole of the first wave of Spanish -- until just the king was left. He started legging it to his border.
I must have had 250+ units hacking at him - trying to kill him. But no - he was in 'superman' mode! He calmly walked to the border -- at which point a further 8 Spanish armies wandered onto the battlefield!
Not very realistic me thinks! Is this a 'rule' designed by the programmers to stop armies just targetting the enemy king rather then having a proper battle or something?
de la Valette
09-17-2002, 18:18
Kings and (less so) heirs are more difficult to kill than standard units. Best way is to attack with spear troops (who should hold them in place) then attack with your own cav or billmen etc
Haven't found it too hard, just need the right units.
Some kings are virtually impossible to kill even after they rout. The best way to kill one is to use your own very high rank/valour king/prince.
I have surrounded the almohad king with over 800 spearmen in the past only to have him break then hack his way through all of them and flee off the map.
Kings should be hard to kill, but in some cases they become effectively invincible, which is stupid (especially after you slap vices like coward and good runner on them).
de la Valette
09-17-2002, 18:42
I find that Catapults are very good king killers.
Knocked out a 7 star Turkish sultan first shot in one engagement, the joy of watching 1000 men rout from one rock!
GAH!
This is actually quite funny... in a morbid sense...
I was battling the Elmos in Cordoba. They were sallying forth to try to lift the siege.
My Italian army was mostly mercs, but it did have some nice units of my own... including some pike units, one of which was a SWISS ARMORED pike.
Now, in the initial melee, the two armies ground each other into a pulp. During such, the Elmo king lost all his bodyguards but did not perish himself. He routed off to la-la land.
Although my forces flee too, I bring in the reinforcements, which include some of the pike units.
The Elmo king rallies and comes at me. All alone. I tinks... nice!
Here is where it gets funny. The Elmo king charges UP HILL into my SWISS pikes, who are charging DOWNHILL at him. And its a STEEP incline at that!
60 SWISS armored pikes vs 1 Elmo Ghulam pig with a crown.
Couple minutes later, the Swiss had lost more than 20 men and were being chased off the field by ONE Ghulam pig!
And, its not like the feller had uber valor... he was ONLY a 3-star general. My pikes were valor 1. Only a differential of 2.
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif
GAH!
Now, I know this was a king and all... but cav charging UPHILL into PIKES should NEVER EVER WIN! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/confused.gif
GAH!
My dreams of decorating my tent with the Elmo kings head would have to wait a couple more turns, as Cordoba was liberated... for a brief year...
GAH!
de la Valette
09-17-2002, 20:24
One unit is not enough. Unless you get the king stuck between a unit with good defence and a unit with very good attack you will not kill them.
Like i said before i don't have that much of a problem killing them. In one engagement i killed the argenesse king (5 star) and 3 heirs (one escaped) using a combination of missile troops, spearmen and billmen (with only a one star general as well). I think it helped that it was a bridge battle (though equally this stops you surrounding them)
Soapyfrog
09-17-2002, 20:30
Maybe the Elmo king had very high dread and some lovely virtues like "fearless" etc...
Who knows?
I like the heroic army leaders!
Vanya, it is even worse then 2 Valours, Rank 3 gives only 1!!! Now you can say GAH!
But normally though the kings and heirs have insane Valours by themselves.
Aren't the SAP 96 men?
That was one insane situation. I have only experienced battles where the general was the man that made sure I lost, but never him winning it.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
Beelzebub
09-17-2002, 21:34
I have a 5 star italian prince campaigning in the holy lands. His unit of royal knights was eventually wiped out through attrition of many battles (and the supply line to Venice has been disrupted by french ships). His stats alone are pretty crazy, 7 valour, 22 morale (!!).
I just had a battle against the turks in syria, 1200 turks vs 400 italians. I managed to win (thanks to some good merc longbowmen and good spear unit defenders, plus a nice hill position), but near the end, I was sending my totally exhausted prince charging into militia and other light units, and he would drop about 5 as soon as contact was made, and eventually route the entire units. Pretty funny.
Yeah, you can use your own killers, but the problem is you never know when they are going to be killers.
And that is what makes me think that this issue it not that bad. Mostly when a killer had arrived, he will not do it again. He will often enough get killed.
For every bad ass I encounter I have killed 10 heirs and kings. So I think it is fair. One needs to have a battle a day where you sit and yell at the screen or bang the keyboard in frustration.
It is healthy, you gain the Virtue Controlled
"This man gets his aggression out of his system on the battlefield. This makes him a pleasant man to be around, if you are not fighting him. +2 Dread, +2 Piety, +2 Valour and +10 Health.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
[This message has been edited by Kraxis (edited 09-17-2002).]
I think its stupid because when you use Heirs in your army (under a better general), they always die in the battle... like you lose a single unit in your princes royal guards and you check the heirs screen and hes dead.
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Stu35s MTW Site - Hints,Lists,Facts,And Porn (http://www.angelfire.com/games4/mtw) (one of those is a lie)
http://www.geocities.com/wolflord_uk/stu35
Alba Gu Bragh
No, I think that is perfectly sane.
That makes you think before you commit those knights. Also it makes sure you can actually get rid of those bad princes without actually losing the battle.
Keep it I say.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
BertrandDuGuesclin
09-17-2002, 22:30
I too find Kings a pain-in-the-ass to kill or to captuer, especially early in the game.
Sounds very similar to the Suicidal Daimyo issue we had in the early days of STW.
The stupid Daimyo would hang around on the battlefield after all his troops had fled and then commit suicide instead of leggin it.
As a result CA beefed up their survivability to make them harder to kill and at the same time programmed a bit of common sense into the way they behaved.
Sounds to me like the beefing up has been passed forward to MTW but somehow the common sense got left out.
Yes, this is a problem. It is a bug and we must make the devs aware of it. Sadly, some people don't want to trouble the devs with these types of concerns. These people are known as the "ostrich players".
No matter how many bugs exist in the game, these "ostrich players" will worship at the feet of the devs, basically calling them, "gods" suggesting that they can do no wrong and that there are no bugs in the game.
I worry about people like them. In fact, I will now stop and pray for these people. I encourage others to join me in this time of prayer.
Arkatreides
09-17-2002, 22:53
What probably has happened is that the leader of each unit has some extra stats (like extra armour/defense) which keeps him alive in battles. Now if you look into the battle mechanics you will see that low attack units (like spearman) have very little chance of killing such a unit. Let us assume the King gets a +10 bonus to defense. He is now at least defense 15 (probably more since he has valour ... he killed a few spearmen, right ... so this might be as high as another +5)
The spearman has -1 attack, let's say 0 for the sake of argument. The difference is 20 which gives a kill chance of 1.9*(1.2^-20) ~ 0.05%.
So ... what does this mean in terms of probabilities, well 20 spearman attacking him (ALL AT ONCE - which they don't) have a 1% chance of killing him ... not a lot. In fact to get a 50% chance of him dying you need 1400 attacks against him(!). That is a lot.
So ... if you want him dead quickly, do NOT send in the spearman, send someone with HIGH attack.
Chromebender
09-17-2002, 22:55
I've noticed that it is often very, very difficult to kill the last unit of a fleeing group of enemies - I wonder if it is some sort of pathing issue where my (nearly full) company keeps trying to form up and can't quite get into position to attack.
Ark, that is exactly what I do.
I normally send spiked infantry to hold him, then I attack his rear with my own Royals (if I have them) or any unit with a good attack.
I actually had a Sultan running all over my Spears, then I got tired of him and sent my 16 Very Tired Varangians at him. After he killed three of them he got killed himself.
That was my first serious encounter with a killer. I was lucky I learned it so fast, and since then I have not had any impossible situations.
I have had battles I lost because my spears were locked in fighting with him and got to the real fighting too late (with him attacking them in the back all the time). But never those insane situations.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
Note: There is a difference between a bug and gameplay/balance issues. Just because you dont like it, it doesnt have to be a bug.
Anyhow, yes- sometimes super generals can seem a bit excessive, but this isnt entirely unprecedented. Obviously, as rule he would have the best armor, horse, equipment, ect. and would be tougher to capture or kill than anyone else. Historically, the Turks claimed the Byzantine Emperor personally killed close to 100 men before he was slain during the fall of Constantinople. Overlooking superior equipment and training, a king would also have a huge intimidation factor. When common soldiers like spearmen are faced with an enemy ruler many become frightened and as such can't fight to their potential.
Now, on the gameplay side... Ever charge into battle with your command unit, trying to flank or break enemy units only to have him die immediately on driving the charge home? I've had it happen. (albiet rarely) However, if we nerf rulers on the battle field we'd have this as a common occurence. Before long people would be on the forums complaining of how quickly their king dies in a battle and how obviously its a "bug" and blah blah... ad nauseum. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif
That's my 2 cents.
[This message has been edited by Xiahou (edited 09-17-2002).]
longjohn2
09-18-2002, 00:22
It should be a bit easier ( but not too easy I hope) to kill kings in the patch. Until then, just think of them as Kensai :-)
200 hundred men against 1 guy? And you think that the sheer mass of 200 hundred men can't overcome 1 guy? Are you serious? Sorry, but that's not correct.
And the story about the Byzantine Emperor is just fiction because the fact is that they never found his body. He died a hero among his troops as a common soldier. If the Byzantines had more Emperors like him years before, the Empire would have stood to this day.
Mori Gabriel Syme
09-18-2002, 04:01
I've seen the king issue work both ways. In one battle, the enemy king charged my line & died immediately upon contact. His entire army routed.
On the other hand, I've tried many times to kill the coward currently on the throne by sending him into battle with just his unit. He fights for a while & then flees, but the enemy can't kill him or catch him. I tried flanking the enemy to wear him out & force him to flee through the enemy lines, but then he routed before making contact.
Arkatreides
09-18-2002, 04:04
Remember, it's all down to probablilities. So it can happen that sometimes he dies instantly and then doesn't die for 20 odd battles if the dice roll that way.
Yes, even if the troops have 0.05% chance of killing the king, you could be lucky.
Another tactic I use when I'm low on troops. I hold the king with a unit of spears of some type. When his bodyguard is dead I change to Engage, that normally means he will push into the formation. When he has pushed into the middle I set the men back to Hold Formation. He is trapped, after some time he is exhausted and will normally rout, but he can't get away and will eventually get caught.
It has worked about 70% of the time.
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BTW, Danish Crusades are true to history.
You may not care about war, but war cares about you!
DON'T EVEN MENTION KINGS TO ME!!!
I was fighting a Spanish force of 400 men with 1300 of my own! The Spanish King ended up fighting alone against my General and his 60 Urban Militia! My General broke against this one man and were quickly followed by the rest of my army!! Sufficed to say I DIDn'T Save this, infact i closed the game in a huff!! lol
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I'll weep for thee,
for this revolt of thine, methinks, is like another fall of man.
Quote It is healthy, you gain the Virtue Controlled
"This man gets his aggression out of his system on the battlefield. This makes him a pleasant man to be around, if you are not fighting him. +2 Dread, +2 Piety, +2 Valour and +10 Health.
[/QUOTE]
That'd be one nice virtue.
KardinalSyn
09-18-2002, 09:12
yes that would be!
Look at it this way. Kings have heavier armor compared to everybody. There comes a critical point wherein a weapon is too weak to pierce that armor. It's like 2 tanks trying to destroy each other using machine gun fire. Spearmen are defensive units. They are good for keeping stuff occupied but don't count on them to kill anything quickly or at all. They only have a +1 bonus against cavalry and their attack starts at 0.
Personally, I use billmen and longbowmen as the English to kill kings and heirs. It's a little more difficult as the Egyptians but Muwahid, Ghazi or Mamluk Cavalry are good king killers after the Saracen has him occupied. Another thing you can do is retreat and charge repeatedly. It will raise the chance to kill by a large margin.
kaleun76
09-19-2002, 01:37
A full unit of Royal knights AND an almost full unit of hobilars failed to get the lone french king, who porceeded to rout the worthless English scum of the field!
Arkatreides
09-19-2002, 01:48
Look, it is all in the maths. As I mentioned above from a purely statistical point of view you might need thousands of attacks before the king buys it. That's the underlying battle engine. It usually works but here obviously doesn't. If you lower the king's stats he dies to easily (especially at the head of a wedge) and everyone will complain about that again.
Now the ONLY way to rectify this is to use something like 'overwhelming'. If the king is alone and faces 200 troops he will be caught NOT MATTER WHAT his defense is. This obviously is not in the code yet and might or might not be easy to implement.
Crimson Castle
09-24-2002, 07:18
King Richard I when he invaded Palestine seemed to have a historical invincibility rating. His knights were well armored and the Muslims swords and arrows at the time couldn't penetrate their armor.
The 'spears to hold them, attack unit to kill them' has workred fairly well for me, also i've found missles to be quite a good counter against these lone horsemen.
IMHO it doesnt need too much tweaking, the situation just needs to be dealt with correctly (as with many other aspects of the game).
Also, i agree that if royals get too easy to kill, there will inevitably be a lot of complaints about it. Either as a result of people loosing their kick-arse leaders, or from people who hold their leaders safely back and start to pick up vices cos of it.
i don't care how thick the armor is. Armor isn't perfect and has slight flaws that can be taken advantage of.
Then there is also the less armored bigger target horse to go after.
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"samishika wa nai shitte irukara saigo wa itsumo hitori to"
"I'm not lonely Because I know I'll be Alone at the end"
email me at: Luftwaffle@mad.scientist.com
Of course the weight of 200 men would subdue and kill a single man... But this is a game and there are certain limitations in the engine which make it function better overall.
As many have pointed out, you can address the problem by keeping the murderous general at bay with spear units and ramming him from the flank/rear with a good attacking unit of your own; this will rout and/or capture/kill him.
Some things of interest on heavily armored medieval warriors, and from what I've read they were quite difficult to kill and sometimes this wasn't even wanted to happen: For example the Turks used to have nets and bolas to catch Knights Tempar and their kin in the coasts and seas of the Holy Land; They had to take their legs out from under them, and when the armored fighter was on the ground they used hammers on the helmets and long knives on the armor joints and eye holes to eventually subdue, wound and finally kill them. One on one (or four), swinging an axe or a scimitar against a heavy european sword and mail, a Moslem fighter was at a serious risk of injury or severe trauma resulting in death. The ever revolting peasantry of Europe also suffered greatly with their pitchforks and leather vests, and it appears they hardly got the hang of disposing the armored baronial forces during the time compassing MTW.
Also, in Medieval battles generals, princes and kings were usually taken alive rather than dead. Soldiers went to great lenghts to capture them alive for the huge ransom. A clumsy warrior killing an important person could draw the wrath of his commander quite easily! Moslems, on the other hand, liked to execute the infidels. They were rich anyway...
At least I would like to execute my crazy Danish Royal Knights (whom I use in my current campaing to dispose of the killer generals) more then often since they end up killing enemy leadiers too regularly. I need the damn ransom money, not heads for display.
Anyway, I enjoyed the serial killer immortal generals more in STW; the idea of a master No-Dachi general holding a fort alone versus my rushing army is more in the spirit of the Japanese warrior legend.
lancer63
10-10-2002, 05:15
Also during the battle of Agincourt, the English foot soldiers had to drive daggers into the eyeholes of the french knights´helms once they were unhorsed, they were also dispatched by stabbing the armpits, groins and the neck juncture and were left to bleed to death, of course there is also the all time popular way of hammering the helmet to licence plate thickness while the owner´s head was still inside.
Cyricist
10-10-2002, 05:31
There is one thing I miss here.. The KINGS may be a tad intimidating and well armored and all that..
But..
if you charge a lone horse with barding using over 100 men with, say, very long & sharp spears.. none of them get through and disable the HORSE??? Sticking a few UNDER the barding is a possibility taht OCCURS when you use over 100 men trust me. Nothing said about that yet! The point here is that the HORSE is actually the weak point of the king, not the king's fighting prowess or armor! Dismount the bastard and he'll have a DAMN hard time defending against over 100 men!! Make the horse more realistic. They're mortal and DO have a will of their own (such as throwing their rider off and speeding from a scene at a certain point, though that would take some drastic reprogramming and a new set of animations I suppose - but I think my point is clear)!!!
Has anyone considered THIS yet???
I have once trap a lone retreating general with 1 unit of 53 hobblier and 2 unit of 20 royal knight with one of them my own 6 stars general. The enemy general is fully surround and trap between the whole mass of my cav. All these cav is my veteran troop with valor 3+ and high morale.
The end result? The enemy general kill 23 of my hobblier and 5 of my royal knight while he kill thru a path out of my mass of cav surrounding him to retreat at the edge of map. grrrrr http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif
RageMonsta
10-10-2002, 06:22
1)What is a King with no kingdom?
2)How can a man stand with no legs?
3)If Pluto was a dog what was Goofy?
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1) Remove his lands remove his people..remove him
2) Chop Chop......off with his head (legs?)
3) Havent a clue...Goofy had clothes..but he sure looked like a dog to me...why couldnt Pluto walk on 2 legs and drive a car then?
Jo_Beare
10-10-2002, 08:33
This might be a little OT, but I bagged the Pope with a bunch of peasants. The peasants were charging down a hill in the wedge formation. The pope had just routed and was trying to run up hill when the peasants hit him and that was all there was to it.
Too bad I didn't get any ransom money for that one.
JoBeare
ToranagaSama
10-10-2002, 08:45
Sheeesh, what's the problem???
Unless, your using cheesy tactics, like lets go kill the King and watch his troops rout! rather than legitmate tactics to defeat his army, its quite simple.
A single armoured unit of Spears, Wedge formation and Hold Formation, is all it takes. Have em attack the King, THEN simply forget about him. The King will get stuck attempting to fend off the spears and will be of little help to his troops.
Go about your business of defeating his army. At some point during the midst of all that you'll get the message that the enemy King is dead. If you've put up a good fight, his troops will rout. End Story!
The spears s/b honor 2 or above. It's what I do, it works. The King wants to charge my troops...GOOD...here's a unit of spears, leave me alone.
This is being addressed in the patch - no godlike near invincible kings anymore - but on the other side, the AI will also take better care of its kings/generals on the battlefield.
Grifman
Hakonarson
10-10-2002, 09:32
What's cheesy about "let's go kill the King??
A very historical practice often commented on - indeed the original Kataphractoi were usually aimed directly at the opposing CinC and let go!!
ToranagaSama
10-10-2002, 10:24
Quote Originally posted by Hakonarson:
What's cheesy about "let's go kill the King??
A very historical practice often commented on - indeed the original Kataphractoi were usually aimed directly at the opposing CinC and let go!![/QUOTE]
Oh boy! "Simplistic", then?
1. Chessy: Any tactic which takes advantage of tactics to which the AI is not capable is CHEESY! The defining question should ALWAYS be: Does the AI do it?
2. I don't believe the AI targets the opposing King anywhere near the degree to which some folks have described that they do.
3. What is the purpose of "single-mindedly" attacking the King? Simply to kill the King thereby causing a mass rout. The "mass" rout caused not by superior tactics and/or execution, nor the "bravery and valour" of your troops, BUT a simple EXPLOITATION of the 'software' code.
4. Cheesy, 2nd def., ALL "exploitations" of software code quirks are CHEESY!
ToranagaSama, says: "Play The Game The Way It Was Designed To Be Played"!
In relation to your "historical" point. Yes, it was an "element" of war, but not the focal point. The Devs have coded this in, but OBVIOUSLY, the code's not perfect. How so? Simple, the code that triggers "mass rout" once the King is killed works to a GREATER effect than the code designed to "specifically" defend against such an attack. Such "defense" code doesn't appear to exist and is needed for proper "balance".
Unfortunately, coding games is not a perfect science. Taking advantage of these "quirks" is of limited challenge.
Maybe CA s/h called their creation "Kill The King" rather than Total War. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif
Using boxing as an analogy. Are you familiar with the term "headhunter". It's a fighter who consistently aims his blows to the head, seeking to "knock-out" his opponent. The strategy will fail for most all boxers, UNLESS they happen to be Mike Tyson in his prime. Now, how many Mike Tyson's have there been. Quite few. The boxing mantra is, Kill the "Body", and Then The Head.
In C-MP, the attack-the-king tactic would be a loser, as a decent Human player would easily guard/defend against it.
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"Our strategy for going after this army is very, very, simple.
First we are going to cut it off, then we are going to kill it."
Gen. Colin Powell,
Chairman Joint Chief of Staff, USA
(Outlining Gulfwar Strategy)
[This message has been edited by ToranagaSama (edited 10-10-2002).]
[This message has been edited by ToranagaSama (edited 10-10-2002).]
[This message has been edited by ToranagaSama (edited 10-10-2002).]
You know what I think? I think this thread won't die!
shokaku76
10-10-2002, 10:53
Heh... I surround the charging king with spearmen, and then have te archers rain arrow on the bugger. Yeah, gonna lose lots of my guys, so I only do this to kill a rabid, raving lunatic King. Turn him into a picushion. Of course, crossbow does a better job of it then, let's say longbow... cause longbows would kill too many of the spearmen.
trader/warrior
10-10-2002, 18:51
one time i was invading HRE with my king it became king versus king! both had lost all their bodyguards. it was a great duel, i eventually won.
Deamoclese
10-10-2002, 20:17
My Danish King with Famous warrior (+20 health) and 6 stars was quite the super hero. I wanted to see how long he'd last alone against an army, so I saved and attacked the spanish.
1 king vs 200 or so FMAA, 120 archers, 300 spearmen, 40 cavalry of some sort (can't remember what they were).
Super hero King Knud attacks... kills 160 or so FMAA, they rout.. turns attention to the archers, kills about 40 and they rout, attacked the cavalry poking me in the back - killed 10 and they rout.. turned on spearmen and killed about 40 or so and they rout... it took about an hour (timer off) but I totally crushed them with 1 king (all his bodyguards died in around 1 minute into fight).
Very funny.. but glad it's being changed in patch.
lancer63
10-10-2002, 20:54
I´m as glad as the next guy that generals and kings will be knocked down from mount Olympus and become more vulnerable in battle.
And I agree that if you kill the king/commander the whole army routs, is a little extreme. I know I have read about engagements where the commander of an army is disabled or killed but the army doesn´t run and even rallies around a corageous leutenant. Take the siege of Malta for example. Dargaut (spl?) the legendary Ottoman CiC of the imperial army is killed by shrapnel from a christian fort cannon, but the siege continued until the Knights of St. John received reinforcements and the siege was lifted.
Maybe the patch can deal with this, moving command to the next best general in case the commander is killed or captured, with the mandatory morale penalties that it should carry. Of course it would be logical imho that if the next general is a coward, it would be a race to the exit door for everyone.
Cheers!
Generals can be superhuman to. I had a 9 star general alone in a province that was attacked by the Spanish. First round this single man killed 35 of 40 attacking, next round 137 of 150 and killed 65 of 240 before he self got killed. What a superhero !!!
Last night I had a battle all but won when the Byzantine general single handedly routed my entire attacking force. I had a unit of Royal Knights and Feudal Knights pounding him against a wall of Feudal Sergeants. He whittled the cavalry down low enough to route them, the rest of the army saw that and booked it out of there. He killed over 3/4 of the three nearly full strength units that engaged him before routing them, completely wiping out the Royals as they were routing.
olaf
Protoman
10-12-2002, 00:58
The kings are ridiculous at times. We shouldn't have to resort to such gamey tactics to accually bring them down.
I once had a kind surrounded by half a dozen units of archers, militia, and spearmen... And I almost LOST because he the superhuman king was hacking away almost all my forces to the point of rout!
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