View Full Version : Observation - Infantry units speed...
While we can see the difference between light and heavy cavalry, there aren't many different speeds for the infantry.
As an example, billmen, who only wear leather armor and use light 2 handed weapons run at the same speed as fully armored feudal knights. That doesn't make sense, they should easily outrun them.
In fact, routing heavy infantry should be easy kills for light infantry, but right now it's not happening. Seems to me that the only infantry units which are slower than all the others are Pikes/halberds and the knights who fight with 2 handed maces such as mercenary "men at arms".
IMHO the level of armor and weapons used by infantry should affect the speed a lot more than it is right now. Being "very tired" or "exhausted" doesn't seem to change speed either. Logically, exhausted foot units should'nt be able to run anymore.
pike master
04-11-2007, 05:20
definetly some problems there especially with the halberdier, swordstaff, voulgier units.
There are four infantry speeds:
skirmisher
normal
pikeman
spearwall polearm
Melee light infantry such as Sword and Buckler Men have no speed advantages, while light skirmishing units like Almughavars and peasant archers can outrun normal infantry. Pikemen have a slower marching speed than normal infantry and spearwall polearms are slower still.
KyodaiSteeleye
04-11-2007, 09:28
Yes, there probably should be some difference as running in a full coat of mail, or plate will slow you down from the weight. However, it might not be as much as you think, as heavy armour was made not to decrease your mobility.
Empirate
04-11-2007, 09:45
Heavier armor shouldn't decrease your speed but increase fatigue, that's all. You can run just as fast in chainmail as in everyday clothes, for all practical purposes. You might start out a little slower, but that's not the point. I've tried this once or twice, believe me. Also, on the battlefield, you'll not have your units running at a dead, all-out sprint. Rather, they'll jog.
What you have in your hands affects movement speed much more, I believe. Carrying something unwieldy like a sword is bad enough, but carrying a 15' Pike must be a pain in the behind.
Heavier armor shouldn't decrease your speed but increase fatigue, that's all. You can run just as fast in chainmail as in everyday clothes, for all practical purposes. You might start out a little slower, but that's not the point. I've tried this once or twice, believe me. Also, on the battlefield, you'll not have your units running at a dead, all-out sprint. Rather, they'll jog.
But fatigue doesn't slow down units in M2TW, so the problem remains.
There are four infantry speeds:
skirmisher
normal
pikeman
spearwall polearm
Melee light infantry such as Sword and Buckler Men have no speed advantages, while light skirmishing units like Almughavars and peasant archers can outrun normal infantry. Pikemen have a slower marching speed than normal infantry and spearwall polearms are slower still.
At least peasants, billmen the the other units with light or no armor shopuld be in the first category.
While we can see the difference between light and heavy cavalry, there aren't many different speeds for the infantry.
As an example, billmen, who only wear leather armor and use light 2 handed weapons run at the same speed as fully armored feudal knights. That doesn't make sense, they should easily outrun them.
In fact, routing heavy infantry should be easy kills for light infantry, but right now it's not happening. Seems to me that the only infantry units which are slower than all the others are Pikes/halberds and the knights who fight with 2 handed maces such as mercenary "men at arms".
IMHO the level of armor and weapons used by infantry should affect the speed a lot more than it is right now. Being "very tired" or "exhausted" doesn't seem to change speed either. Logically, exhausted foot units should'nt be able to run anymore.
These are good and valid points.
It would be much better gameplay-wise if the fatigue actually affected speed. I've always wanted that.
Light infantry should defintely outrun heavy infantry.
There is good counter point though, that intially your armor won't affect your speed. Personally I think it should, it's better for gameplay. It will also make heavy infantry more 'heavy'
Needs modding. Should be easy enough but time consuming. Do you want to post this in the 1.3 wishlist as an enhancement ?
pike master
04-11-2007, 12:40
feudal dismounted knights will fatigue slower and recover faster than most infantry units in the game despite wearing heavy mail. 8(
But fatigue doesn't slow down units in M2TW, so the problem remains.
If Im not mistaken the more tired the unit is the slower it becomes.
CBR
Afro Thunder
04-11-2007, 12:57
That might be because they're stronger and manlier than most other infantry units.
CBR I don't think it effects their speed of movement. I've seen exhausted cavalry and infantry move at the same speed as fresh. Pretty sure it does'nt.
Would appreciate a quantitive answer though.
HoreTore
04-11-2007, 13:10
Saracen milita outrun JHI, which is a normal polearm unit.
CBR I don't think it effects their speed of movement. I've seen exhausted cavalry and infantry move at the same speed as fresh. Pretty sure it does'nt.
Would appreciate a quantitive answer though.
Sinan, next time play with fatigue on then :beam:
My tests showed exhausted units to be slower than very tired units who were slower than tired. Units might already slow down a bit at tired but not sure about that.
Its ages ago I did tests for RTW... but IIRC units started slowing down already at winded. Could be the same for M2TW but I didnt bother with detailed tests.
CBR
Hmm... weird. There exists a fatigue setting ? I don't see it in 'Game Settings'.
Anyway they do show status as fresh (& juicy!) -> warmed up (YEAH !) -> HOT & WET !!
.... ok wait no actually it's like this:
fresh -> warmed up -> winded -> tired -> very tired (?) -> exhausted -> totally exhausted.
But all units still move at the same rate.
Fatigue can be turned on/off in the preference file, located in the main folder, under [game] 1 for yes and 0 for no IIRC. Either you have turned if off or 1.2 (I assume thats what you are using) is different from earlier versions.
CBR
Thanks. I found it, here it is in my file:
fatigue = 1
So it's on. Using PureFixer 1.13.
So if you have a line of say 4 units, 2 exhausted and 2 fresh you dont see any difference in their movement rate? walking or running?
CBR
I don't see it, but now you've got me thinking so I'll run a test. But I'm really very certain there isn't any difference in movement speed.
I did this test just now.
2 Hobilars.
1 Exhausted
1 Fresh
I ran one around the map till exhausted. then ran them back to the other unit.
I then ALT + right clicked on a point about 20 seconds gallop away.
I let them march, difference was small but it was visible.
I let them gallop, using R. The difference was unchanged but more visible over a few seconds. After about 3 seconds the distance between the 2 units, neck to neck, remained unchanged until point of arrival, at which they stopped.
My conclusion now is that there IS probably a minor difference between exhausted and fresh units' movement speed. However the difference is probably less than 5%. It is so small as to not make any significant difference to the battle outcome or to unit usage in battle. You don't really have to worry a great deal about fatigue vis a vis movement speed. That is it does'nt really matter what fatigue state you are in you can still pretty much operate at normal movement speed.
However it can make a difference in situations where marginal advantage counts, such as when your general is exhausted and the enemy general isn't. Your general is routing at less than 5% less speed than the enemy general is chasing you. In this case eventually the enemy might catch up. But even here it's negligible, you can out maneuver and outrun anyway.
Fatigue does'nt seem to count for much and does not impair your movement speed significantly enough for you to consider it a factor.
To be fair this test needs to be done with a variety of units. I've been modding ENgland all day and I'm almost desperate to start a new campaign now. So I won't been doing this now.
A REALLY EASY way is to simply look in the files, but I don't know which one to look into. If someone does I'm sure they can give us a quantitative answer in about 90 seconds, and that answer will be much more definitive than any tests such as the one I conducted. Anyway this one is just a quick test, it has to be done with infantry, armored, unarmored etc to be at all feasible.
GAME ON !
Tests showed exhausted units to be running at around 75% the speed of fresh units. One can certainly argue for that the difference is not big enough. Just compare with STW/MTW where exhausted units still retained their normal march speed but could not run at all!
CBR
redriver
04-11-2007, 15:36
I think they had it "perfect" in RTW. ya can clearly see the speed difference between light/med/heavy and fresh/tired/exosted units across the board..
it's funny how ppl complained that RTW unt movment speed was unrealistic... looks like it's even more "unrealistic" in m2tw 8)
yup another nail... :smash:
The difference in percentage was IIRC the same in RTW. The reason why one perceived it to be more in RTW was the relative difference in distance moved over time : You simply saw fresh units pull ahead quicker in RTW because everything was uhm 20+% faster.
CBR
I would say the speed should change. I know soldiers today can run at the same rate even if exhausted, but not all can, perhaps the SEALS or the SAS. Eventually though they'll fall too. Anyway that's realism talk... basically what I'm saying relates to gameplay.
It would be much more interesting gameplay wise if movement speeds reduced with fatigue untill exhausted, at which point a unit can no longer run, but only march. This would make it also more challenging. And if you REALLY wnated to make it uber'cool' you could add that the unit dispersion would increase, and there would be more stragglers.
EEEEKKK ! NO ! Of course this is once we've fixed the router chase and cohesion issue FIRST.
Nevertheless that would be my ideal scenario. I'd love to see that. It might also ecourage you to leave a battle when everyone is exhausted rather than pursue the fight to the death (as usually it's the case).
OT: I also feel heat or cold effect is negligible for the most part. I have no issue with Feudal Knights or Crusader Sargeants in Arabia. I can chase anything with them for very extended periods of time in bright summer sunshine and 45 degrees Centigrade (what it looks like anyway). There I would actually like to see people dropping or routing simply because of heatstroke and panic. Bit exageratted but yeah, hope you get the idea.
I think you need a 20% difference in speed to be tactically significant. For instance, we experimented in Samurai Warlords with yari cav running 10% faster (0.56 meters/sec faster) than cav archers. The cav archer has an open fire range of 100 meters. So, it would take the yari cav over 2 minutes to close that gap. With the cav archer moving at 6 meters/sec, the chase would cover over 720 meters which is more than half the width of the largest maps in that game. In view of the fatigue rate, combat resolution time (typically 2 minutes or less) and scale of the army (typically about 120 meters wide), 2 minutes of chasing over 740 meters seemed out of balance dynamically. We returned cav archers to their original speed of 20% slower than yari cav. You see this same 20% speed difference in the light infantry vs heavier infantry. Those are the dynamics of the gameplay chosen by LongJohn for the original game, and I've always felt that it was extremely well designed in that regard.
good info
What'd be even better, IMO, would be a float multiplier for the current engine that could speed up or slow down animations for running/combat/etc individually. Seeing how the current game engine is inextricably linked to these animations (which we don't have the means to change) it would at least be a good way to give us more control over how the game behaves... given CA's apparently position on modding and game mechanics right now.
it's funny how ppl complained that RTW unt movment speed was unrealistic...
The issue there was that the number of units to control went from 16 to 20 while the running speeds were increased by 50% and the combat resolution time was lessened. The dynamics of the games prior to RTW allowed for more complex tactical maneuvers utilizing a higher level of coordination of the individual units than you could achieve in RTW. That's not to say the prior games were easy to master because they weren't. Even original STW with it's 11 unit types is not easy to master.
I sometimes put in my little thoughts that usually dont make any sense:
But regarding speeds though isn't it like putting a sprinter against a five year old girl. Like a highly trained heavy infantry unit (JHI) vs. a regular infantry unit. Even though the other guys armor may be lighter I say the better trained soldier can run equal speed with heavier armour. While fatiguing the same.
Sorry if I'm completely wrong thought i'd throw it out there. Hopefully someone gets what I'm saying.
I get it. I posted the same he will run at the same speed, because he is trained, he wears that armor frequently, while the militia are Sunday soldiers.
pike master
04-11-2007, 20:34
im not trying to get retro mtw/vi but it did have the best fatigue system.
namely when a unit got exhausted it started walking and it would refuse to run until it had recovered to very tired.
also the statement about the feudaly knights being more manly keeps them from getting fatigued is not correct [ remember the spartans and sacred band?:laugh4: ]
Even if Feudal Knights are well trained and tough guys, I highly doubt that with a chainmail, helmet, partial plate armor, shield and sword they could run faster than light infantry. Especially if they are exhausted or routing.
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.