Some random stuff about kingdoms

[Neoncat]

First I checked that one rebel city was near some of my biggest stacks and I though why not attack it with all those forces I had near that city. So I moved some stacks next to city and pressed end turn. On rebels turn they sallied out and attacked one of my stacks. I though that AI has gone mad or something. However when battle started I had only one pathetic unit on battlefield and I got message that reinforcements delayed.

http://cs.joensuu.fi/~ppakar/seka/mtw2delay.jpg

Ok, I though that maybe they will emerge when I just fight long enough, but none of them came onto battlefield. They got me after a while and I lost the battle!

http://cs.joensuu.fi/~ppakar/seka/mtw2delay1.jpg

Not only that. Every single unit that were sieging did fall back into my territory, because I lost that darn battle!

What else?

- While playing Teutonic campaign my horses charged correctly zero times.
- Theres still a problem with pole arms and long spears. They just won't work.
- Theres still a problem with siege AI. They sometimes just rush through a small hole and my troops do nothing to stop them. (They were even those idiotic Teutonic troops with long spears. I though that spear wall next to a hole in my wall would stop at least those horse. I was wrong...)
- Theres still a problem with AI defenses. They just move all troops out from their cities/castles and let me attack their cities/castles with one to three defending units.
- When I attacked AI cities/castles and it had one to three units. AI units weren't even on walls or near walls. They were always in town center. I was always able to use ladders or such without AI troops to react those anyhow.

And this is what we even should pay for! I am not going to play this *peep* anymore. I am going to give this away or sell to someone stupid enough to buy this *peep*.
:furious3:

[DVX BELLORVM]

First I checked that one rebel city was near some of my biggest stacks and I though why not attack it with all those forces I had near that city. So I moved some stacks next to city and pressed end turn. On rebels turn they sallied out and attacked one of my stacks. I though that AI has gone mad or something. However when battle started I had only one pathetic unit on battlefield and I got message that reinforcements delayed.

Your reinforcements were delayed because the game concluded that your PC is not powerful enough to handle that number of troops in a battle.
You can turn off this feature by editing medieval2.preference.cfg and setting unlimited_men_on_battlefield to 1. Be warned that this can cause serious lag in large battles.




And this is what we even should pay for! I am not going to play this *peep* anymore. I am going to give this away or sell to someone stupid enough to buy this *peep*.
:furious3:
I agree that M2TW AI is far from perfect, but you can say this for most strategy games on the market. It's your decision to either accept it and continue to play this great game, or throw it out of the window.

[icek]

Instead of ranting i would take this situation as a life in-game lesson. Who siege city with one unit? You cannot even build siege equipment effectively.

[TheLastPrivate]

Its ultimately ur decision but most of the issues regarding long spears can be fixed if u know how to use them. Instead of saying they just don't work, try searching, or experiment around and find out for yourself. O wait, you weren't going to play anymore...

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[Per Ole]

Your reinforcements were delayed because the game concluded that your PC is not powerful enough to handle that number of troops in a battle.
You can turn off this feature by editing medieval2.preference.cfg and setting unlimited_men_on_battlefield to 1. Be warned that this can cause serious lag in large battles.

False: The reinforcements wasn't delayed becouse of PC specs, or it would have said so. The reinforcements are sometimes delayed, and that's part of the features. It makes sure that you don't exploit reinforcements armies like you would have done there

[Lamprey]

No, the reinforcements delayed message even says "ecause your computer specs aren't high enough" or somesuch.

But what pisses me off the most about kingdoms is the unlimited troops the AI has. 5-province Egypt in the crusades campaign sending 3-4 full stacks at me 5 turns into the game, and those being their best troops? Who at CA decided that giving the AI unlimited money was going to make the game more fun?

[Per Ole]

look again at the picture he posted:

http://cs.joensuu.fi/~ppakar/seka/mtw2delay.jpg

[Matty]

Who at CA decided that giving the AI unlimited money was going to make the game more fun?

I dunno - but it does though, doesn't it?

[DVX BELLORVM]

I still think that the purpose of those delays is to prevent larger number of men than you PC can handle. I never saw it when fighting with small armies.

[Per Ole]

you get another message if it's the specs that doesn't suffice. Trust me, it will say so.

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[WhiskeyGhost]

lesson of this story: Don't leave single unit armies as re-inforcements for your invasions (i'm also sure this lone wolf wasn't just sitting outside the city, but besieging it as well. This has happened to me a couple of times with my half stacks i bring in for backup are also sieging. The solution is to have them adjacent, but NOT sieging too)

[Ramses II CP]

What he means is, the AI is ungodly bad at sallies. If you siege with one unit but have three full stacks sitting to reinforce it, the AI will still happily sally out under the assumption that it can beat you. And it won't retreat when your reinforcements come in either, it'll keep on pouring out of it's safe defensive position in the city to try to catch those first men.

It's sad. It's an exploit. I guess Kingdoms makes it harder to abuse. :juggle2:

:egypt:

[sapi]

False: The reinforcements wasn't delayed becouse of PC specs, or it would have said so. The reinforcements are sometimes delayed, and that's part of the features. It makes sure that you don't exploit reinforcements armies like you would have done there
You are correct - that is not the specs-related delay message :bow:

[Ciaran]

I am going to give this away or sell to someone stupid enough to buy this *peep*.
:furious3:

Well, as long as the ingame language is English, feel free to ship it to me. I mean it.

[lancelot]

Its ultimately ur decision but most of the issues regarding long spears can be fixed if u know how to use them. Instead of saying they just don't work, try searching, or experiment around and find out for yourself. O wait, you weren't going to play anymore...

Are you not missing the point here? He should not have to 'search or experiment', the issues the OP described should work properly to begin with!

[diotavelli]

Are you not missing the point here? He should not have to 'search or experiment', the issues the OP described should work properly to begin with!

I must be missing the point. When I bought Kingdoms, I assumed that I would have to learn how to use any new or adapted troops. CA had announced that balancing had been changed from M2TW proper, not just for Kingdoms as a whole but for each campaign. That means the same unit can require different handling depending on where (i.e. which campaign) it's fighting.

Some people might see that as a bug but I see it as giving the game greater depth and making it more challenging. Each of the campaigns is set in a different era and area, with different technology, climates and geography, so it's entirely reasonable that different troops should perform better or worse and require different handling as such.

Same for the increased AI cash and the changes to reinforcements.

A richer AI may not spend its money more wisely but, with more to spend, it at least isn't bankrupt and can afford more troops to pose more of a challenge.

I've had the AI miss out on reinforcements in the past (no screenshots, I'm afraid) and thought it was a bit odd - I didn't complain, though! It seems it can bite both ways.

I believe that M2TW and Kingdoms are both far from perfect but I think some of the criticism of them is misguided - particularly criticism from people who are upset when units and features in Kingdoms aren't identical to what we experienced in M2TW. CA said in advance that there'd be changes, after all.

Given that we expected the changes, should we not have expected we'd have to search or experiment to find new tactics and strategies?

[lancelot]

^Well, I thought my previous post made it reasonably clear that I was refering to the OPs complaints over bug issues and AI balance points not complaints over tactical changes- which of course the user should experiment with.

[diotavelli]

^Well, I thought my previous post made it reasonably clear that I was refering to the OPs complaints over bug issues and AI balance points not complaints over tactical changes- which of course the user should experiment with.

Yes, your previous post did make that clear but I had hoped that my post made it clear that I don't believe most of the issues the OP raised are bugs.

The occasional non-arrival of reinforcements appears to be written into the game, possibly (as a previous poster suggests) to make the game more challenging by preventing the player from simply relying on overwhelming numbers.

The issues over cavalry charges and use of pikes/long spears are moot: you can't use them the same way as in M2TW and certainly not as in MTW/RTW but lots of us find we can get results using them. This would suggest they are not bugged, simply designed to be more challenging; this is supported by the fact CA stated they wanted different campaigns to increase/decrease the effectiveness of certain troops to reflect the way battles were fought historically.

Sieges have been discussed at length. There are problems general to M2TW but I haven't seen any that Kingdoms introduces specifically. Personally, I'm delighted that the AI no longer immediately puts most/all its troops on the walls, as this is often not the most effective way of defending an attack; in Kingdoms, town centres are often elevated with only one or two entrances and for spear troops and pikes, abandoning the walls to defend the centre can be a better approach, especially against cavalry-heavy opponents.

AI balance issues are similarly complex but I think the OP may not be doing CA/M2TW/Kingdoms justice in this area. CA have clearly attempted to respond to user feedback about AI behaviour. The AI is not always doing the same thing in the same circumstances in Kingdoms as in M2TW. You or I may not approve of the new behaviour but, if we have any common sense, we'll surely acknowledge that there is no 'correct' approach for CA to follow here: someone will always hate what they do and someone else will always find a work-around. The question is: does it make the game challenging?

I find it does. Sometimes the game behaves unexpectedly or even does something I'm not sure is appropriate but I figure I have two choices. I can spit my dummy or I can try to find a way to respond imaginatively and thus get some pleasure from responding to the new challenge. I choose the latter and the game works for me.

It may not work for others but, given that enough of us have stated that we consider the game ain't broke, it would be better for all of us if those who aren't satisfied couched their complaints in more reasonable fashion.

[Von Nanega]

As we all know throughout history every battleplan worked perfectly and all soldiers in all eras did exactly what they where supposed to do! Why, it MUST be a bug, and nothing else! :inquisitive:

[Goofball]

Some people might see that as a bug but I see it as giving the game greater depth and making it more challenging. Each of the campaigns is set in a different era and area, with different technology, climates and geography, so it's entirely reasonable that different troops should perform better or worse and require different handling as such.

and:


As we all know throughout history every battleplan worked perfectly and all soldiers in all eras did exactly what they where supposed to do! Why, it MUST be a bug, and nothing else! :inquisitive:

Please see my sig. You both just made my day...

:laugh4:

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[diotavelli]

I agree with the OP that if a tiny stack was defeated, huge nearby armies shouldn't be (effectively) randomly forced to flee. While that may not constitute a bug, it's simply nonsense - an embarrassment that any self respecting dev would patch ASAP.

If it happened every time, I'd agree with you: it would be simply nonsense. But we've seen that reinforcement stacks tend to be engaged more often than not: what happened to the OP is an occasional occurence, so the outcome he suffered is similarly rare.

It's also historically accurate. There are numerous examples of battles where small forces were engaged by the enemy, put to rout and a larger following force panicked and fled. It didn't happen as often as the alternative (i.e. the larger force doesn't flee) but it won't happen as often in Kingdoms, either.


As far as cavalry charges and spears/pikes.... those unit types didn't work right in RTW or MTW2 either. Many of us spent hours researching random command sequences to trick those units (via micromanagement) into simply performing their basic function as intended. Eg, "Formation On, Attack, Stop, Hold, then Attack"... vs "Drop Formation, Double Click, Halt, Attack, Resume Formation", etc etc just to get the idiots to attack with their primary weapon.

This is a question of opinion, I guess. I've used both unit types in all three games and been satisfied with them. No, I can't point-click-killeverything - but I don't want to, as that's not historically accurate. A devastatingly successful cavalry charge was a rare and difficult thing to execute; it took a lot of work and even more luck. But, with effort and practice, it is possible to use both unit types to good effect; it's often messy and the results can be unpredictable but, again, that's historically accurate.


Overcoming design flaws does NOT equal learning new tactics. Is it challenging to overcome a poor interface and pervasive unit malfunctions? Sure, but it's not the kind of challenge I look for.

Again, this is opinion, I guess. If you believe that units should be operable on a point-click-everythingworksperfectly basis, then I agree that the design is flawed. I don't believe they should work like that and don't agree with your analysis. Each to his own.

[Goofball]

This is a question of opinion, I guess. I've used both unit types in all three games and been satisfied with them. No, I can't point-click-killeverything - but I don't want to, as that's not historically accurate. A devastatingly successful cavalry charge was a rare and difficult thing to execute; it took a lot of work and even more luck. But, with effort and practice, it is possible to use both unit types to good effect; it's often messy and the results can be unpredictable but, again, that's historically accurate.

Surely you are not suggesting that it was historically accurate that well-disciplined, professional pikemen would, upon first contact with the enemy, immediately drop their pikes and try to stab them off of their horses with their little swords?

Or that elite cavalry units when pursuing routers through an open field would scatter off in every direction (except that direction in which the routers were travelling) across the map, and allow almost all of the routers to retreat unmolested across the entirety of the battlefield and escape while the cavalry milled about aimlessly, sometimes even allowing the routers to pass right through them?

Those two things are bugs, my friend. Historical accuracy has nothing to do with them.

Cavalry charges, on the other hand, I will admit are difficult to perform perfectly, but not bugged. They just take a bit of work but are worth it when you pull it off.

[TheLastPrivate]

Of course, the loyalty of the commanding general of the reinforcing army seems to matter...

[diotavelli]

Surely you are not suggesting that it was historically accurate that well-disciplined, professional pikemen would, upon first contact with the enemy, immediately drop their pikes and try to stab them off of their horses with their little swords?

Or that elite cavalry units when pursuing routers through an open field would scatter off in every direction (except that direction in which the routers were travelling) across the map, and allow almost all of the routers to retreat unmolested across the entirety of the battlefield and escape while the cavalry milled about aimlessly, sometimes even allowing the routers to pass right through them?

Those two things are bugs, my friend. Historical accuracy has nothing to do with them.

I did not suggest that the behaviour of pikemen in the game is perfect or historically accurate. I described it as "messy" and "unpredictable" - and it was that that I described as historically accurate, not the behaviour itself (a small point but a telling one!).

I don't actually think pikemen are bugged, however - just badly designed. I think CA wanted to reflect that pikemen carried secondary arms to cover circumstances when their formation was broken. Problem is they didn't do it very well and pikemen suffer as a result. It doesn't mean you can't use them effectively in battle, as I and several other people have pointed out - although I accept they could be far easier to handle.

I made no reference to cavalry pursuing routers but responded to the OP's complaint about cavalry charges which, as you acknowledge, are not bugged.

My point is simply that a lot of posters seem to view having units that offer a choice of micromanagement or unpredictable/inappropriate behaviour as an indication that the game is bugged. That's simply wrong. You may not like a game that contains units of that sort but it doesn't mean the game is broken.

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