Field Battles more decisive - Sugestion

Introdution (skip this is you want to waste less time)
I still remember the first time I had contact with RTW (and TW series). I was completely atonished at watching hundreds of greeks soldiers screaming battlecries while preparing to assault the HUGE walls of a HUGE city with equaly HUGE siege towers. This was 7 years ago and since then I've never stopped playing TW games for a long time (specialy after I found EB). In the first times I realy loved sieges, specialy winning them with exploiting tactics like the famous phalanx "noob box" in the square or in wall unrepaired gaps or, in BI never upgrading stone walls from large so I could defend my cities from large armies with just 2 or 3 lombard archers as guarrison.... But, after some time, siege battles get a little boring, specialy because they are the ones that realy matter (no mater how many heroic victories you win if you cant siege their cities). So, I remember some of my latest vanilla games, using The Greek Cities and bribing everything so I never had to do sieges and other boring battles. :laugh4:

With EB, things aren´t so simple. Not only is much harder to bribe or autoresolve as we also have realism to think about.
And, I think it has already been discussed, "Siege Total War" is neither fun, neither very realistic, especialy because the AI will never starve and allways procede into assault and boring (and somewhat unrealistic) siege battles while field battles wont hurt much because of the money script, specialy in big empires (in EB2 this may change a little due to limited unit pools, but still).... I almost never play with eastern factions because of the endless AS spamming, no matter how many stacks you crush.

Before Flamming
Well, this is surelly not a main concern since there is much to be done (and I unfortunly cant help much, I even tryed moding and skining but wasnt tallented enought neither I do have enought time atm) but since EB aims for perfection (at least while the engine allows it) there's no harm in give sugestions, even if the team don't have time to it now, if the idea seems interesting, it could be done later, or even applied as a unofficial mod to EB1 by someone out of the team with the enought skills and interest...

I dont know much of scripting and have no idea if this would work, just sugesting.


SUGESTION

While answering to the "What are the main things you want to see fixed from EB1 in EB2???" topic I wrote this:

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Originally Posted by LusitanianWolf

-> Less Siege Total War ( I gess that's impossible due to engine )

- > Field Battles more relevant to campain development (unit replenishment rates will help but if possible, a script that decreases happiness from losing side settlements making some rebel would make them much more interesting. Romans didnt need to siege the whole seleucid empire to disrupt it, same for Alexander's conquests, but again don't know if that is possible ). Spoils of war should also help (some cash bonus to represent at least taking weapons from dead enemies and suply apropriating).

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And have been thinking since then how this could be applied. And then I remembered that the EB script produces government buildings because of the AI not building them (am I wrong)?

So, could be possible to link a script to heroic victories/crushing defeats to create buildings in the faction settlements and traits in the non envolved family members? Probably the answer is NO and you can leave this topic but at least I tried, lol

BUT, if that is possible, my idea was a script that, when a Heroic Victory/Crushing Defeat happens would create/destroy buildings (just like the government ones) that would increase/decrease settlements happiness (making the less loyal ones to rebel) and drasticly the cost to bribe (so that bribing would be possible/impossible, the AI tries to bribe many times at least in RTW) and traits in less loyal family members that reduce/increase loyalty and personal security).
So, when you win a Heroic Victory, you could expect your enemy to be greatly damaged with some of their settlements being perceptive to rebelion or bribing while your own ones would be less, BUT, if you have a Crushing Defeat, BE AFRAID, cause it'll hurt you seriously!
So, if that works, it should make field battles much more decisive and Agents and happiness buildings much more usefull, while reducing the need of siege battles)!


Some possible issues I can think of


1 - That would make Blittzing very easy for the player and big empires!
Well, it will BUT settlements and family members captured this way should remain very unstable for some turns so they will be very vulnerable. You will be able to conquer large masses of land, but keeping them is another issue, you'll have some difficult turns where you'll need to effectivly protect the new adquiring lands and build up infraestrutures quickly.

2 - That would make small factions very vulnerable!
The core settlements (with govenment 1 or 2) and FMs of each faction should be much less affected by this (unique buildings/bonus giving bonus to happiness and loyalty to the original faction). In the other way, border territories and mercenary FMs would be much more vulnerable.

3 - That would make the game much harder to the not so inteligent AI
Ofc the bonus to the AI should be greater than the players (that should also have to deal with heavier penalties) just like the normal EB script. The player should have to act strategicaly while the AI would as allways need some script help and luck XD

4 - Some people won't like the idea/this will make the game very heavy and slow
It could be an optional script/unoficial mod ;) So if you want siege total war or a more stable campain don't install/activate it.

5 - That will take lots of time and the team has other priorities (if you want to see EB2 in your lifetime).
Of course I'm not telling to anyone do this now, lol! I want to get my hands on a working EB2 as soon as possible, and I've being following it since this forum was made (as a invisible lazy lurker, mostly)! I'm just giving an idea hoping that some day someone with enought skills and spare time may give this a try or at least some thoughts



This, of course if it's by any means possible and if there are people that share my point of view on "siege total war". I'm ready to accept a single "NO" as an answer (I've seen Team members do it before :laugh4:). But at least would be nice to see some feedback on this matter since this would possibly solve two of the things I most hate in RTW - Sieges all the time and fighting endless stacks.


And ofc, thanks for reading, I hope it wasnt wasted time (especialy the precious EB Team time, if my idea sucks just warn so they can spend their time in more produtive matters). :yes:

Well first off, what would keep the defeated from just destroying these buildings?
and second: How would this solve the endless stacks problem?

Well, recruitment pools will hopefully help a lot in the endless spamming of stacks.

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Originally Posted by TheLastDays

Well first off, what would keep the defeated from just destroying these buildings?
and second: How would this solve the endless stacks problem?

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Yes, I've thought of that too. The AI just never destroy building but sure, a player could. But here's the chance to have indestructible buildings (EB have them) so each city could have a base indestructable one that would give penalties (could be the one that says what governments can be build in that settlement)
and destructable scripted ones that would give bonuses and at start there would be a stablemate. The backside is that there would be more script related buildings in each city.

Second, the stacks problem would be solved indirectly since it would be much easier to damage great empires without having to siege ever single city or sending armies throught long distances of enemy territory just to destroy one city (by heroic victories and then bribing, assassinating or instigating revolts) .
So, less stable territory means less units to recruit and more vulnerability to invasion of key points, I hope at least XD if you have one third of your empire rebeling or siding with the enemy even the heart of it could be threatned more easily.

yeah siege total war is the huge blot on EB's aim for historical accuracy. in fact it almost makes their corpus of work worthless as they could to the best of their ability reflect nuances of ancient societies, but the actual warfare is still dictated entirely by RTW's broken mechanics of siege warfare and throwaway armies

better to conect it to the authority of the faction leader his generals or himself have an heroic victory his authority rises if he fails his authority decreases and we all know that rebelling parts of the army are conected to the king´s authority

now if we could mod the game in terms that the authority of the leader affects squealor and that same authority and squalor are conected to how many setlements he won/lost or how many heroic victory´s or crushing defeats he had it could vey extremly fun expecially everytime a faction leader dies the prince (as a rule ofc) as far less authority so we would have to concentrate alot on having the sucessor fighting many batles to gain enough influence before he becomes king or once the faction leader dies there might be a big increase both in squalor and amount of troops going rogue (even some generals or less loyal family members or even in extreme cases rebelling towns)

ofc we can always send the sucessor to the capital with the big academy and he eventually gets 10 influence but thats just a small trick

Many sieges aren't so unhistorical, but yes what TW games are lacking is the annihiliation of the enemy's army = faction willing to surrender...
Also since AIs seem incapable of building up any sort of economy, all the money scripts allow them to recruit endlessly...
High hopes for the recruitment pools, maybe after a crushing defeat they will allow to build resistance only with lower classes, but again they should surrender :P

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Originally Posted by Arjos

Many sieges aren't so unhistorical, but yes what TW games are lacking is the annihiliation of the enemy's army = faction willing to surrender...
Also since AIs seem incapable of building up any sort of economy, all the money scripts allow them to recruit endlessly...
High hopes for the recruitment pools, maybe after a crushing defeat they will allow to build resistance only with lower classes, but again they should surrender :P

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The pools will help limit army spam but over time if the AI hasn't fought a major war the money scripts usually allow it to build a much larger army than player with same amount of regions could ever hope to make. That isn't always a bad thing especially if the difficulty level has some effects there.

I don't know that peoples always surrendered after a major defeat. Kingdoms might sometimes become vassals but that was no guarantee and states might give concessions and tributes but surrender? Not very often.

With money scripts and limited pool sizes what I've seen in other MTW2 mods is that after winning a few crushing victories and not capturing any of the AI regions the AI is not going to agree to peace- however the quality of its army does go down for awhile and if another AI/faction presses its war or goes to war vs the AI that was defeated then it will often ask for peace. But usually it requires capturing cities. However I find myself fighting more than 2/3 of my battles as field battles with sieges being often but not so overwhelming as to be boring. You can also avoid siege assault be laying siege with army smaller than garrison- AI almost always sallies, or you can attack single armies stationed near walls to draw the garrison out to a field battle.

I'm not sure how EB2 will do arrow towers etc but in sieges that and boiling oil at gate the the largest causes of casualties. Otherwise the narrow spaces and poor pathfinding of the AI allows less costly victories than field battles. I absolutely hate how MTW2 does arrow towers with any enemy being anywhere close the towers fire. RTW you could capture a section of wall and it remained captured. Now as attacker I do all I can to avoid going on the walls since there is no point. Your main army can't enter over the wall except very slowly and you can't capture the wall. As defender on the other hand wall and towers are more easily exploited. Just station splinter units in a garrison and they can run around on the walls letting the arrow towers(or worse for MTW2, cannon towers) do most of the work. Boiling oil is the same thing... should be limited to 10-15 times. Its an endless supply not and if you hold enemy at gate long enough the oil will kill more than half.

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Originally Posted by Ichon

I don't know that peoples always surrendered after a major defeat. Kingdoms might sometimes become vassals but that was no guarantee and states might give concessions and tributes but surrender? Not very often.

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You're right, guess the issue is all in the "army larger than what they could really afford" to me, diplomacy should have a way bigger role in the game, but I recall M2TW had a better system there...

M2TW really doesn't to be honest. maybe Kingdoms does but i was at war with everyone on earth even before the crusade was called against me. allies will attack as as soon as you border them.

M2TW also has all siege engine armies! fun fun fun

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Originally Posted by fomalhaut

M2TW really doesn't to be honest.

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Can't say much for vanilla (didn't play that a lot), but many mods had some solid alliances, the AI values military access rights, even if they don't seem to use them, having relationship to outstanding or perfect and common allies was a sure thing...

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Originally Posted by moonburn

better to conect it to the authority of the faction leader his generals or himself have an heroic victory his authority rises if he fails his authority decreases and we all know that rebelling parts of the army are conected to the king´s authority

now if we could mod the game in terms that the authority of the leader affects squealor and that same authority and squalor are conected to how many setlements he won/lost or how many heroic victory´s or crushing defeats he had it could vey extremly fun expecially everytime a faction leader dies the prince (as a rule ofc) as far less authority so we would have to concentrate alot on having the sucessor fighting many batles to gain enough influence before he becomes king or once the faction leader dies there might be a big increase both in squalor and amount of troops going rogue (even some generals or less loyal family members or even in extreme cases rebelling towns)

ofc we can always send the sucessor to the capital with the big academy and he eventually gets 10 influence but thats just a small trick

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That is a good idea, I wasnt very aware about authority influence!
And another thing that the script could affect was agent's influence/skill to reflect the fear/respect that a winning faction would amass or the lack of authority that a losing faction would get. I gess I'll try to take a look at scripting (I have some programation basis so It shouldnt be that hard, right?) when I find the time to test a very simple version of this, who know, maybe I will be of use to the EB team later :P

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Originally Posted by Ichon

I don't know that peoples always surrendered after a major defeat. Kingdoms might sometimes become vassals but that was no guarantee and states might give concessions and tributes but surrender? Not very often.

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Probably wouldnt surrender very often but they should lose influence in their own vassals/puppet allied states. Thats what I was trying to mimic with this.
Didn't Hanibal tried to make some of the old roman enemies in italy to revolt with is own victories? And I'm not saing a 100% surrender chance but something like a 30% chance to rebel/being bribed/being assassinated in least controled provincies. You should need to siege the capital and more important cities normaly.

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Many sieges aren't so unhistorical, but yes what TW games are lacking is the annihiliation of the enemy's army = faction willing to surrender...
Also since AIs seem incapable of building up any sort of economy, all the money scripts allow them to recruit endlessly...
High hopes for the recruitment pools, maybe after a crushing defeat they will allow to build resistance only with lower classes, but again they should surrender :P

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That's why I was hoping this to work, to force them to "surrender" at least in their borders/puppet vassals by indirect methods.

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Originally Posted by Ichon

I don't know that peoples always surrendered after a major defeat. Kingdoms might sometimes become vassals but that was no guarantee and states might give concessions and tributes but surrender? Not very often

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Vassal states by their very definition would give some sort of assistance to the winning nation, if they refused it either resulted in war or them becoming independent again.

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Originally Posted by moonburn

better to conect it to the authority of the faction leader his generals or himself have an heroic victory his authority rises if he fails his authority decreases and we all know that rebelling parts of the army are conected to the king´s authority

now if we could mod the game in terms that the authority of the leader affects squealor and that same authority and squalor are conected to how many setlements he won/lost or how many heroic victory´s or crushing defeats he had it could vey extremly fun expecially everytime a faction leader dies the prince (as a rule ofc) as far less authority so we would have to concentrate alot on having the sucessor fighting many batles to gain enough influence before he becomes king or once the faction leader dies there might be a big increase both in squalor and amount of troops going rogue (even some generals or less loyal family members or even in extreme cases rebelling towns)

ofc we can always send the sucessor to the capital with the big academy and he eventually gets 10 influence but thats just a small trick

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Brilliant ideas, love it!

Would like it even better if some factions were more vulnerable to surrendering and suffering revolts than others. At one extreme, unstable regimes like the Casse, Sweboz, Seleucids and Ptolemies should be falling apart, rebelling and fighting among themselves after a crushing defeat on the battlefield, while at the other extreme the hard cases like the Romans, Hayasdan and Pontus should be almost immune to the effects of a crushing defeat.

(Notice how I picked the AI factions that do well in EB1 to be weakened, and the AI factions that do poorly in EB1 to be strengthened.)

There'd have to a very very fine balance to walk though, if this is possible at all.

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Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato

Brilliant ideas, love it!

Would like it even better if some factions were more vulnerable to surrendering and suffering revolts than others. At one extreme, unstable regimes like the Casse, Sweboz, Seleucids and Ptolemies should be falling apart, rebelling and fighting among themselves after a crushing defeat on the battlefield, while at the other extreme the hard cases like the Romans, Hayasdan and Pontus should be almost immune to the effects of a crushing defeat.

(Notice how I picked the AI factions that do well in EB1 to be weakened, and the AI factions that do poorly in EB1 to be strengthened.)

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I don't think it is a very good idea to impose a permanent effect like that, it is very "gamey" and doesn't make sense historically as even the Romans suffered from rebellions due to defeats. Also you cannot equate a factions performance in EB with it's performance in EBII, there are way too many differences to do that.

still bobin a crushing defeat should undermine the authority of the faction leader and if your heir suceeds at the age of 16 then he has no authority of his own and can´t rely on daddy and until he proves himself there should be some negative effects until he gains a few victories finishes the agoge and get at least 4 points of influence and ofc fast before the dude who married his older sister decides he is better off governing segestica as an independent kingdom (wich if he does should trigger some masse revolts and until your murder him by any means necessary you would loose a few lands and armies once the dude dies and his descencents are dead within 20 years the lands who rebelled and the armies should return to the flock)

but hey i´m the idiot who sugested a sub mode where you could only control homeland regions and all other out of it had to use client kings wich you couldn´t controll (neither city´s nor armies i might had) and it forçed your hand to keep large garrisons to keep them under control

I wasn't arguing against defeats undermining authority, just that it should affect all factions and not the few that were too strong in EB.

Exactly... and the AI Seleukids are usually not doing well - and Pontus in my campaign gets pretty big usually, played by the AI, so I don't really get your point Titus...