Army Camps off the battle map

Hi I'm new to these forums, as i ma a refugee from TWC, which as you will know is currently down.

Any way, as any student of military history will know, armies (particularly large ones) never marched and fought in isolation, as always had a string of camp followers, wives, cooks, smiths, servants and mules following their progress that were often just as large as the army they were following!!

Although I am no expert in Japanese warfare i can say with some confidence that this would have applied to them as well. So my idea is, wouldn't it be good if, just off the edge of the battle map there was a camp for each army, or perhaps just the defenders, not a fancy one with walls, just rows of tents and equipment, and maybe the odd scurrying figure running frantically between them.

If these camps were included on the battle map, they would make ideal objectives and would fit in with CA's plan to make certain key buildings capturable on the battle map. They would add another, vital element for the player to defend as if the winners of the battle had had their camps pillaged they could suffer from movement and supply penalties in the larger campaign.

What do you think?

It's a good idea but I fear that adding more complexity to the battles themselves may be to much for the already strained battle AI.

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Originally Posted by Peasant Phill

It's a good idea but I fear that adding more complexity to the battles themselves may be to much for the already strained battle AI.

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Bear in mind that CA are already planning on adding building objectives to the battle maps, so if they think the AI will be up to that, it will be fine for this as well.

Takeda III had a clever way of incorporating this. At each end of the map each army had a camp, with two flags. If a unit broke through the enemy line and reached the enemy camp, they could cut down the flags and the enemy would suffer a large morale penalty. CA would do well to incorporate something like this.

Hmmm, well, one feature i think will be included is this new guerilla feature with NTW Iberian Campaign.

6 Units i think, they can all deploy anywhere on the map, except your opponents zone.

Now, if you think about those riflemen and other units on ETW and NTW that can walk without being seen, and couple it with this guerilla tactic, then what do you have?

Me..........

I have NINJAS!!!!!!!:idea2:


How cool would it be, they can only be used once and only to assasinate Generals/Captains/Leaders on the battlefield. You have to deploy them somewhere well hid, sneak up to your target without them being spotted and then engage to kill. All this while trying to fight the damn battle also, and if succesful the moral drop to your enemy and boost to you would be significant!

Ninja could also target these "Hero" units CA mentions a lot of!

Camps and such did play an important role in many historic battles. Many of the most famous cases involved one side loosing because part of their army started looting before the battle was won, allowing the other side to recover and win.

What would be cool is if the enemies supplies/loot appeared in certain battle situations. For instance, when ambushed the defender's supplies would take the form of wagons at the rear of the marching column, or in night battles a camp with tents and fires could appear on the defenders side. These structures would provide a benefit when taken, but possibly would take a while to 'raid', forcing the player to consider if it would be wise to take units out of the battle in order to capture these objects. This would provide some more variability and a unique feel to these types of battles.

As a concept - great idea. One could even have units more likely to raid without prompting (e.g. peasants) whereas other units would not unless ordered. One could even have different speed based upon whether it was an exercise in destruction or an on-battlefield knees up. Does this action improve or reduce moral for a unit (keen to run off as with the swag rather than fight)? How does this effect other friendly units or the other army? Is there a post battle bonus? Can commanders have traits to help / hinder aspect of this?

Or will it be so badly implemented that players are openly weeping how this "feature" has further diluted the core of the game down as this is another aspect that the AI just doesn't really "get" - luring the AI into one's own camp to then counter attack for example.

I would like the possibility to be there for the modders to address, but not CA as again we'll see too many things that are frankly half baked as when complexity rises, complexity rises exponentially.

~:smoking:

Hmmm...not a bad idea,

There are some cool ideas here, but if the AI will not be able to properly handle this feature, then I'd rather do without. If CA could pull it off though, the camps would add an interesting dynamic to the battles.