Leader command stars: idea for better model

I've slowly realised how important command is in the battles. As England on early, you get someone called Strongbow Fitzgilbert or something who comes with 6 stars. I gave him a +1 star province title and another +1 star office of state, and soon he was up to 9 stars. He was incredible, carving a path from Kazan to Tripoli on escort duty for a crusade.
It got me thinking that the way command influences battles is a little cheesy - your men become supermen just because of their leader. Now, I can understand how some leaders may transform their men through training or inspire them to heroic deeds but I suspect that this was probably not the main way leadership affected outcomes. I was wondering about other ways to represent the main advantages of superior leadership in a game such as MTW. I guess a lot of the effects of superior tactical leadership - a Wellington or Longstreet - are ultimately up the player to catch through their gameplay. However, the quality of a general could still be modelled in some other ways, for example:
1) Choice of terrain - the better leader might be able to pick the terrain or have a wider choice of starting position.
2) Arrival of reinforcements - a better leader might start with a more concentrated army: set-up with more units and get reinforcements more quickly.
3) Possibility of an ambush - leadership might affect the likelihood of being caught at a disadvantage (eg your cav in a wood near enemy infantry; your army divided across a river etc)
4) Command and control - leadership might affect the speed with which units act on your command and the likelihood that your command might be ignored or misunderstood.
All these ideas seem feasible to programme within a MTW3 type game system; any reactions?

I have always thought that the better the general the larger the area of deployment for the defence should be (when he's commanding it). Having a good base knowledge on historical warfare i can tell you that one of the largest increase in the likelyhood of winning a battle came from positioning. This is well known.

If they reduced a 0* gens area and then with each * a %10 on deployment area?? This would give a good gen a nice bonus in outnumbered situation.

Better AI generals does indeed fight better. They are not spooked, they flank better than normal generals, they use the best troops in the army to lead the attack (and with the patch they pick a better army to start with).

And they train them better inbetween the battles, they pick better unit commanders, they get to choose a suitable battlefield.

i believe now, as i have allways believed. since the beginning of total war, honor and valor should never have increased the killing power of soldiers. it should not frighten or rout enemy units just because they have lower valor then the enemy. and above all else, it should not give 50 men the power to kill a thousand. all that valor and honor should do, is give your men a sense of duty, and a willingness to die, regardless of any valor the enemy may or may not have. no matter how much honor, or how much valor, arrows, swords, and spears still kill. valor is neither a shield nor a sword. it is a reminder that you have come to fight, and probably die.


to sum up, if you charge your low honor cav into a high honor archer, the archer should die. but i watched in amazement tonight as my low valor, undamaged unit of mounted sargants, which charged a lone, depleted to 12 archers, unit of simple archers. without it's general around to inspire him, he still knocked my cav down to under 20 men before routing when i finally managed to knock him down to 1 man. and this, inspite of the fact i got him in the flank. surely someone must understand that a willingness to die, is not an ability to stay alive.

Well, you stand your ground with a meter of steel in your hands, having not fought a battle while 100 guys who are legendary for having slain hundreds of your fellow countrymen come charging at you.

I quite like Simon's idea, but it would be a little tricky. You'd get thousands of people coming along going "whine, whine, I always get beaten because my forces start the battles spread out over the map, whine, and one time some of my units were on the wrong side of the bridge, whine, this game is $%*^$#"

Valour is not only the inspiration of the leader. It is their training, and mostly their experience. 100 horsemen who have never fought a battle would find it difficult to put up with 20-30 peasants who have fought in a series of battles and each one of them know how to kill, because it has done it many many times before.

I think that great leader who have great valor are able to win a battle even if outnumber. It's hapen to me with the Aragonese, he came to attack toulouse with is king and heir, "no pb I tought", as I had 3 units of feudal sergeant, 2 spearmen, 2 of urban militia and 2 archer and him just 3 royal knight and 2 archer. But my armie was a newbie armie, no one has fight before, so when he came to charge me, he kill me 50 men with is 15 royal knight in 1 min, all my armie flee one min later after having lost 150 men and kill maybe 3 royal knight.... Well then I ask my self why, and look at his valor, 8 little flag for his king's unit, then I understand why my men turn back, these 15 guys was very very experimented maybe legendary, so my guys were scared...
I love that, because with a small but experimented army you can win a battle witch seems to be lost from the start

I see valour/honour as combat experience. So I don't see any problem with a 'lower' unit defeating a 'higher' one, nor lesser numbers defeating larger. Experience counts for a LOT in battle.

Also, I would say that a great leader does indeed inspire his men to superior feats of arms. Generally, an army that has never lost believes itself to be virtually invincible. Bonaparte infused that feeling into troops he commanded and often the very same soldiers that would be victorious under him would suffer defeat under one of his marshalls, against the same foe. Obviously Bonaparte had the greater military ability but there also existed an element of the above principle. Clausewitz mentions 'valour' as an extremely important factor of an army.

yes, but how long was bonaparte with his men? a day?...a week?... a month?..... but nay, he was with them for years, like he raised them as his own children in a sense. so imagine this... you have a good general, except he has some bad vices, and once or twice he ran like a dog. his men had been with him for years. next year, you change your general, and suddenly they forget how to run? for a man's valor to rub off on his men, he must know them, and they him. it's not an instantaneous effect, but years and years of training. i have nothing against a general affectting his units abilities entirely, if that general has been that army's general for years. also, where does the individual unit's valor go when they have a general with bad vices? men, with valor of their own, will do great deeds, inspite of their generals. but they get mad penalties if their general is lame. so a lot is lost by leaveing everything on the general, and not enough on the unit itself.

The experience of the troops is definitely important for the outcome. A high trained unit can surely defeat a outnumbering force of greenhorns, the problem is the exp should not depend on the general. Of course the general can inspire his men, but that should effect morale and not the ability to fight. Men that fought a dozen battles and survived but are commanded by a fool should still defeat new recruits onder a genuis in hand to hand combat.
As it is now, it`s hard to get high valour units through combat experience because they only get valour when they had hard fights that usually kill a high number of their men.
Here`s my suggestion: the general should only influence morale. Instead of valour one could use a rank system. Each unit gets experience points for actions it commits. A few just for participating in a battle (couse they see how it looks like), more for taking part in the fight and even more for routing enemy units and some for solving quest... err uups, wrong game.

You can also see the Valour as an indicator of the troops training, and the one responsible for their training is the general. A bad one will not train them very well, they will not drill every day or practice. When the good commander leaves they have a whole year to lose the condition they got into under him. Enough time to be lesser troops than before.

the training of the men is indicated by their own valor before the general's command bonus is applied. the bonus that is applied is due to the influence of the general. in the case of this game, his influence turns them into killing machines that are near invunerable, just because he is. men can be inspired by the actions of others, but not to the point where they become more then what they are. men can only reach their own potential, not the potential of others. and if a unit by itself has high valor of it's own, it should not be brought down by a bad general.

the things i see that a high command general should achieve by his being the general, is men that fight on even when they are tired and scared. but they can't move faster then is humanly possible. and when they are fighting, and arrows are flying all around, they should die just as fast as the men they are fighting. what are they gonna do, swing swords at enemies with one hand, and deflect arrows with the other? no, not at all. they will fight on, die like men, and this inspite of their own feelings of fear. but die they will. what, does the general's command allow them to move their vital organs so arrows don't pierce them?...or turn thier bones into steel? men would be more loyal with a good general, less apt to go awol when they know they are about to die. if fear does get the better of them, as all men are capable of fear, they will rally sooner, and their nerves will steady sooner. so they can die some more, if need be. it is my opinion that in ancient warfare, most men forgot that their general even exsisted, and fought more to stay alive, then because their general was their commander. imho, the survival instinct is stronger then valor, especially when you are doing something you should not have done. no man ought go to war, and in the heat of battle as their beverages of their morning meal is running down their legs, they find that out soon enough.

my guess, is this valor thing is a romantic notion. an idea invented by the nobles that led people to believe that war was glorious. but war was never glorious. it was bloody, and it stunk of death. and people died, with or without valor. i am certain that many men of valor died in those days, as well as many valorous fled. for when valor does not exsist in your own heart, you can not recieve it of others. and when those of valor found thier arms and legs lieing next to their heads, they knew at that moment,... it was a lie.

well, i'm afraid this is one that has driven me nuts since the days of shogun. valor is valor. it's not experience. it's not training. it's not confidence. it's valor. the dictionary defines this simply as 'bravery; courage' and it comes from the latin word 'valere' which means 'be strong'. what's wrong here is an assumption that valor increases ability. it doesnt. it's just valor. in the game, that translates to morale or a willingness to hang around a little longer in the face of impending death. there is no reason why a peasant cant have a better valor than a highly trained unit and it's also true that a highly trained unit will tend to have more confidence which does tend to increase his willingness to hang around longer, but what the game does is backwards. if you buy more valor in a multi game, for instance, you are actually buying training and morale, which most closely fits with what i said about a highly trained unit and confidence. what you shld really be buying then, is training, which in turn increases confidence/morale.

what i suggested a long time back was to separate these things out into different categories, as it's quite confusing to new people at times that you think you're buying morale and are really buying training. when i found this out as a newbie, i immediately changed my way of playing. so, it would nice to buy valor (without the training aspect) and or to buy training (and get a little morale bonus in there representing confidence).

and this is what a good leader shld be instilling to his men, confidence. how can you instill training simply by being there on the field? it's just a bit of a silliness. but, it does work in terms of game play as long as you know what's going on.

now, it is also true that in single player (and this may be where the confusion is coming from....mp vs sp) a unit gaining valor is also gaining training and this actually makes sense in this context. the guy has been in battle and survived. he most likely learned something, especially if he was actually engaged and won his battles. his training would indeed to up and so would his morale. so, in this context it makes perfect sense, though i'd tend to change the wording, perhaps, or even still separate them out in the stats, but, it does work. for mp games, however, it does seem backwards.

i've mostly gotten over the whole thing, but i was waiting to see if it would be different in mtw than it was in stw/we/mi and was a bit disappointed when it wasnt.

ah well, c'est la guerre.

K.

in some armies i've seen, the bonus the general gives his troops lifts the troop's valor above his own. and since valor increases a units ability in this game, the bonus should be maxxed out to the same valor as the general's. and also, the general has to be in the vicinity of his troops in order to grant that valor bonus. i had a battle against a nine star general who didn't even show up to fight, and his steppe cav. walked all over my five star royal nights. steppe cav is a low morale troop type, as well as not being all that strong against royal nights. but with the bonuses....DOH http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/angry.gif

Valour and experience should be seperated. Mizu is right that valour won`t increase the ability to fight. But I think experience should still play a role. Veterans fight more effective and live longer, even against archers (it does surely matter a lot how you hold your shield). If you compare the casualties of newbies and veterans, you will find a great difference in every war. (It was the case in WWII, so if experience does matter when bullets fly around, it definitely matters in melee.) Of course training plays a role too, but experience is still more important.

First off, great idea

Okay, these are my long-held, much reiterated beliefs. Every unit has to model a number of combat factors and they should be divided as follows:

BASE STATS
(This should reflect Equipment/Training Combat Power-- fighting ability as a result of armor, weapon, internal unit fighting tactics -- if i use Swiss pikes there is inherent & implicit in that a certain level of training. If I am a militia unit my training/equipment standards are lower)
- Elite units are elite because they have better weapons and training

VALOR
(This is fighting ability through combat experience)
- should be separate from morale
- should go up with fighting experience only by a small incriment (2-3 plusses at most) and never more than doubling a units actual killing ability (Base value).

MORALE
(This is steadiness under fire through combat experience)
- This should go up in a huge way through combat
experience (from "runs easily" to "fights to the death") - - - Elite units have some training and seasoning so they should rightly start out at a higher level than militia types.

COMMAND
(This is where everyone's new suggestions are great. How do you model Wellington's effect on his men? Much of what makes a good commander is tactical use of troops & reserves -- this really IS THE PLAYER http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cg...cons/smile.gif more than anything-- so let's give the player help)
- give a morale bonus for troops
- larger (or smaller) set up areas for attacker or defender
- allow high command attackers to deploy troops (in the campaign) before battle
- add (ONLY A LITTLE) to Valor
- make it easier to hide troops in woods.
- time reaction to orders.

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Here's one other thought:
There are stats that control unit speeds - turning, rotating, marching and running.

What if VALOR (combat experience) did not make the unit KILL/DEFEND better, but affected movement speeds?

Thus an experienced unit REACTS faster, spins better and moves quicker -- your kills will go up with that unit because you are flanking your enemy faster or positioning a spear unit infront of cavalry quicker.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]- give a morale bonus for troops
- larger (or smaller) set up areas for attacker or defender
- allow high command attackers to deploy troops (in the campaign) before battle
- add (ONLY A LITTLE) to Valor
- make it easier to hide troops in woods.
- time reaction to orders
There are stats that control unit speeds - turning, rotating, marching and running

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great idea.
I wounder we can get this done though - hopely in TW3

If Valour was to be Morale primarely, as opposed to nothing as it is now, then you could basically ignore Good Runner Vices and such. It would have little effect whatsoever if the genral just has a few stars. It would upset the whole balance a good deal, as well as make it boring. I at least find it less interesting if the Morale V&Vs simply become something of no importance.

You can't really argue against that. Soon you would see Spearmen with 8 Morale and Knights with 16 Morale and so on. We might just as well turn off Morale (it adds 12 Morale).

No, I prefer the ability to fight better to stay over some Morale issue.

Kraxis --
I'm not sure I understand you, but I wonder if you are confusing the word "moral" with "morale."

Morals are a Virtues and Vices type thing.
Morale is the enthusiasm of troops to fight.

Right now MTW (like STW/MI) has Valor (Honor) and it affects 3 separate statistics all at once:

- Unit Attack
- Unit Defense
- Unit Morale (how quick your troops run)

When Valor goes up it raises all three stats and affects attack and defense in an exponential manner. (It can take a unit with an attack value of 4 and make it have an attack value of 16 -- a increase which I think is way too much.)

But the attack and defense are also wrapped up with the "morale" stat, so it also affects how long a unit stays and fights. I (and many others) have long thought that "morale" and "attack/defense" stat increases should be done separately.