Fighting in the woods

[Terry]

I encountered a battlemap where the action all took place in a large wooded area. I couldn't see my troops or the enemy much.. I started the battle with a set formation, but once the battle started, there was no telling what was going on. Is there an effective way to deal with this? Or a way to thin the tree graphics on the map as in Combat Mission games?

Terry

[Burns]

I love how trees totally mitigate the otherwise godly bird's eye view of battle. Turning down vegetation settings might do the trick??

[FactionHeir]

Nope that doesn't do it. I got everyone off or on lowest and trees are truly annoying.
Maybe not as annoying as the 'feature' added in M2TW that forces you to watch cut-scenes such as general getting killed or wall/gate being breached without a means of cancelling it.

[Mr Frost]

...Maybe not as annoying as the 'feature' added in M2TW that forces you to watch cut-scenes such as general getting killed or wall/gate being breached without a means of cancelling it.
It can be disabled . I forget how at present , but I did it just after I installed the game {did it before in RTW too} . It is in the preferences if I remember .

I'll try to remember where I put the instructions {it was slightly different to RTW in this} and try to remember to post it {bit busy you seen} .

Can't help with the trees however . Sorry . Try calling a lumberjack ; I hear their O.K. .

[pike master]

what i dont like about woodlands in the game is that there is almost no penalty whatsoever against cav units charging and fighting in forest.

the game says there is but in the battle i havent seen it.

on one occasion i took merchant militia and charged a spearmen schiltrom in a forest and routed it after the 3rd charge. this is normal v1.1 in the open but for it to work in the forest makes me disappointed.

[Omisan]

I hate fighting in forest. I'll try to move where there are fewer trees if the AI is on "attack mode". If it's passive, then I walk slowly with all my units tighly packed together except for the cavalry which I send behind the enemy.

[Rozanov]

Used to play quite a lot of forest battles in RTW and BI

Agree it can be a pain but it's great fun to lower the camera angle to that of the troops and control them from the general's PoV.

Requires quite a bit of pausing and micro-managing. And often degenerates into a mess as units disappear out of sight chasing down routing units.

But still playable and fun.

[Whacker]

Can't help with the trees however . Sorry . Try calling a lumberjack ; I hear their O.K. .

I heard that too, and they sleep all night and they work all day.

@Terry

Forest battles can be really obnoxious like that, I agree. Usually there will be an area or two that's got a clearing, so if you can try to concentrate your forces there as long as it doesn't put you at a terrain or map disadvantage.

:balloon2:

[Generals_Bodyguard]

I suggest CA give all Axemen units the special ability to chop down trees for the expansion or maybe M2TW1.3...

[Carl]

I find this annoying too, don't get me wrong it's lovely looking battle-maps you get, but the trees just get in the way too much to the point where you can't see more than on or two men in one unit when zoomed right in. As a result i find it nearly impossibbile to carry out coherent plans in those environments as I often have no idea what any of my own or the enemy forces are doing or even where they've got to when they've moved from their original positions.

[Shahed]

I encountered a battlemap where the action all took place in a large wooded area. I couldn't see my troops or the enemy much.. I started the battle with a set formation, but once the battle started, there was no telling what was going on. Is there an effective way to deal with this? Or a way to thin the tree graphics on the map as in Combat Mission games?

Terry

You have to take the camera down to man level. Then it's the best view you can have in that situation.

[Quickening]

Even something as simple as the option to make trees translucent when your troops are covered by them as they've done in strategy games since Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings. Okay so that was it's buildings and it was an isometric game but still, could surely be done.

EDIT: Actually wait, Im talking shit. Age of Empires 2 didn't have translucent buildings but you could see the outline of troops behind them. BUT STILL, IT CAN BE DONE.

[hode]

Burning artillery fire and flame arrows should set the trees on fire.

[BigTex]

I've found that forest fighting is one of the most interesting things I've seen in RTW. In M2TW they made it even better, takes quite alot of skill to pull off a forest battle, and the rewards are nice if you can do it well. The sheer chaos that ensues after contact is amazing. I'd have to say I really hope they don't put in an option to make tree's invisible.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Congratulations, you guys have just discovered that fighting in a wooded area is kinda hard on the command and control.
IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE! You'd almost think that commanders preferred to fight in fields. If you don't like fighting in woods... don't fight there.
Asking for some option to remove the trees is completely missing the point. Why don't you all ask CA to remove all the tactics stuff? After all, it's getting in the way of you pwning the opposition too.

[phunkbot]

i do like the chaos of fighting in the woods but i agree that having fire missiles light stuff up will make for a nice addition

[Booga]

I like all the woods fighting, it makes terrain have a real impact on gameplay outside of just number crunching. Especially in the New World with their Vietcong-wannabe Aztecs.

Forests in RTW were horrible. Most of the terrain was cool, but the trees were just too cartoony.

[TevashSzat]

Just tell your archers to start firing fire arrows and start a huge forest fire. Run away and then just wait until your enemy army starts running out and then cut them down there

[Specky the Mad]

or if you did not check to see which way the wind was blowing and the fire comes back and bites you the on that tender place, and if people think its hard to keep track of your units with just trees in the way imagine the chaos when their is a huge bush fire that you created heading your way.

That would also make the Sherwood archers more dynamic in their function as a ambushing unit being able to decimate the enemy as you could start a fire close to the enemy as they get a camouflage bonus in woods that would trap the enemy forcing them to run for their lives, you would pin them in between a sword and hot place :smash: and then see a massive chain route as it is a everyman for himself situation.

[Booga]

I'm getting mental images of Bambi from this whole thing. I love it :D

[nikolai1962]

i find it nearly impossibbile to carry out coherent plans in those environments as I often have no idea what any of my own or the enemy forces are doing or even where they've got to when they've moved from their original positions

I love forest battles for precisely those reasons :)

Even better with minimal UI. Light cavalry to go find the enemy, march your army up close then just charge whatever you can see. Great fun. Or even better; in RTR i pretty much covered the entirety of germania with trees and sat and waited for big stacks of macedonian phalanxes to come get my little armies of under-dressed germans. So cool.

[Matty]

Just tell your archers to start firing fire arrows and start a huge forest fire. Run away and then just wait until your enemy army starts running out and then cut them down there

But you can't get your archers to fire at a area can you? Only at enemy soldiers? I didn't know that you could target woods to set them on fire - would certainly make the Aztecs easier.

[Empirate]

Matty, that kind of comment was more in the vein of a "wouldn't it be cool if...".

They had the treeburning idea as far back as Total Annihilation: You'd be suddenly attacked by enemy bombers, order your antiair units to shoot them down, and breathe a sigh of relief if they did. Then you realized your base was in the middle of a forest, your troops were scattered all over the woods, and the crashing enemy bombers lit up all the trees... good times!

I agree with the (few) posters who say that fighting in the woods should be difficult mostly due to perception/command reasons. I like it the way it is, although the trees are ridiculously tall sometimes. Most trees I know aren't ten paces in girth, you know! I'd like for troops in forests to move slower, especially cavalry: difficult terrain, no chance you'll pull off a charge there. It might slow the battles down a lot, but I can't see a soldier in half-plate armour (let alone a barded horse carrying a knight) running in a real forest. Everybody should have the option to run removed while in the woods. Oh, one thing I really don't like about fighting in forests is that your missile troops also take almost no penalty. In M:TW, you could sometimes beat a superior enemy army that relied on missiles by awaiting them in the woods. In M2, Trebuchets and archers are almost as deadly in the woods as anywhere else.