Anyone here knows how the reinforcement system works ?

[Mithrandir]

well..do ya' ?DO Ya'?.

I dont understand ,I invade a province with 3000+ troops,I send 2 units home, no reinforcements arrive, another unit gets routed, no reinforcements...

lucky for me my kensai fought brave and the battle was still won http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif.

but when do you get reinforcements?

and a suggestion for TW3, Fantasy Total War, I hope they let you purchase more than 16 units so that online reinforcements are enabled...

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[LittleGrizzly]

well when a unit leaves the battlefield (completely leaves it) a reinforcement unit should arrive also id like a reinforcement system in mp

[Catiline]

I think there's a time variable in it. basically it seems pretty random, but seeing as how after a bit with a decent 16 unit army you'll be able to whoop anything the ai can throw at you it doesn't really matter. i rarely keep more than 16 units in one province, anyhow, it's too frustrating to have an army of tooled up monks and cav, the endup with the pc choosing the arqs and ashi you left there by mistake.

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Timeo hominem unius libri

[This message has been edited by Catiline (edited 07-24-2002).]

[Gothmog]

part I: some complains
I don't usually say harsh words to a game company, especially since CA is the one that created STW. However ...

Shame on you CA developers! You did a wonderful job messing up with the reinforcement, and completely ruined half of the game!


Ok, I am back to normal.

Ever since WE/MI came out, the reinforcement system is completed screwed (excuse my language).

The version 1.0.1 made it a huge pain in the butt doing any battle involving more than 16 units from either side. The reinforcement just came out of nowhere. Left, right, front, back, you name it.

And because of the huge protests, CA made some major changes in 1.0.2. Basically now AI's reinforcement problem seem to be fixed. While the player's reinforcement is still scewy.

There is no telling when/if you are going to get reinforcement. We had many discussions, and many raised some speculations, but they all turned out to be wishful thinking.

So far, it's still a complete myth how the reinforcement system works.

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part II: A wise man can always find something good in a bad situation

Here are some tips that I learned through my hopeless addiction to large scale battles:

1)If you have reserves (aka reinforcement), and you completely withdraw/rout each and every of your own unit in the battlefield, you will get reinforcement.

And that's how the AI always get its.

Which can leads to an expensive tactic:
bring in two armies, and after the 1st army is worn out, just withdraw them all.

Two downsides and one pointer to this tactics:

Downside A: the new army will arrive as "tired" if the battle has been going on for quite a while (even before they start marching!). Another huge mess up from CA.

Downside B: the reinforcement appear from two directions. Thus grouping and deploying them to a good terrain might be difficult.

Pointer: Don't worry about withdrawing your rank 6 general. the new army will still enjoy his commanding bonus.

2)Simply just don't rely on reinforcement at all, since a good general can defeat any size of the enemies with just 16 units. Some tips:

A: Even though you only plan to fight with 16, do bring in more for raining days, literally.

Firstly, during the deployment phase, you can choose those that best fit the situation. For example, suppose you are on defense, then you might want to bring in more muskets in clear weather, more samurai archer while it's raining.

Secondly, if some of your units got decimated or routed, or you have to withdraw them, then you JUST MIGHT get some reinforcement. Again, don't count on it.

B: Since you don't have the advantage of quantity, concentrate on the quality. Meaning that you want to have a high rank general, you want to build your tech tree so that you soldiers can have high honor and decent updates.

It also means that you want to KILL their high rank general at all cost, the commanding bonus means A LOT since it applies to each and every soldier.

When on defense, you want to take full advantage of the terrain. Bridge, hill, forest, and the edge of the map.

When on offense (yeah, I sometimes use my 900 men to attack a province defended by 4000 heavily armored and armed AI), use your cavalry, high attack melee troops (such as No-Dachi) and high ROF missles troops (such as Samuri archers) to defeat the first 16,

then

immediately regroup and find a good defense position for the incoming counter-attack.

That's when your naginata, YS and muskets can have their glory.

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So in conclusion, even though CA did a lousy job on the reinforcement, we can still play large scale battles with their crappy system, and have a lot of fun from it.



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Pain is weakness leaving the body.
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[Mithrandir]

ok, thanks I guess, no one tried to patch/mod this yet?

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[mizuYari]

I found in SP, reinforcement is not that totally random. So here is what I have been doing:

1. Always group the starting army together. Chose 16 units you want to fight, group them in an army.

2. drop the starting army first into the province.

3. Dropping the reinforcement units after.

4. Usually, put cavs as reinforcement because it can move to where you need them fast. Cav arch are excellent reinforcement because it could come in shooting.

I agree that reinforcement must be thought off at time of designing the engine. Since you only allow 16 units at a time, reinforcement in multiplay add an extra dimension to the game. However, the random arrival of castle defense reinforcement is pathetic...

MizuYari

[Gothmog]

Quote Originally posted by mizuYari:
I found in SP, reinforcement is not that totally random. So here is what I have been doing:

1. Always group the starting army together. Chose 16 units you want to fight, group them in an army.

2. drop the starting army first into the province.

3. Dropping the reinforcement units after.

4. Usually, put cavs as reinforcement because it can move to where you need them fast. Cav arch are excellent reinforcement because it could come in shooting.

I agree that reinforcement must be thought off at time of designing the engine. Since you only allow 16 units at a time, reinforcement in multiplay add an extra dimension to the game. However, the random arrival of castle defense reinforcement is pathetic...

MizuYari[/QUOTE]

I am afraid that the fist two suggestions don't work. It really doesn't matter whether you group your army or not.

I tried once to drop 24 units piece by piece into where I wanted to invade (yeah, 24 banners!). In the order that I wanted them to appear.

It didn't work.

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It's a good idea using CA as reinforcement. However, here is what's been bugging me all along.

The reinforcement came in as "tired"!

By the time they reach the main army, they are already "very tired" if you let them do anything at all, "exausted" if you let them run (sometimes you have to do that if their starting point was lousy and/or your main army is in danger).

If things are already this bad for cavalry, imagine how hard it is for reinforcing foot soldiers to survive the long march.

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Pain is weakness leaving the body.
http://www.grahamday.dial.pipex.com/rose-knight1.gif