Wow. Infantry fights now.

So I'm shooting up some armored sergeants with some Mameluk archers, just maying sure the patch didn't mess HA up. Then something weird happens.

These spearmen have about a third of their number left but still don't break and run. What the heck. Let's charge them and chase down the routers.

They fought. They formed schiltron. They were surrounded and outnumbered. They still fought. My general dies. This is getting serious. Their general dies. They still fight.

Final result: All the infantry are dead, but they never broke. I have a total of one Mameluk archer left.

I think those new morale changes in the patch might make it a little harder for my running and gunning playstyle.

What was their commander's star rating, and their experience?

I mean, these are some elite mofos with a strong commander, I can see them fighting to the death.

Well, they fought even after the commander was dead, so shouldn't matter what his rating was. In any case, that sounds really good. I had a little custom battle myself to check out how it feels, and it was awesome. Danes vs. Spains. Nice little moment when, after the general rout (a good while into the battle), a good amount of the Spaniards regrouped and charged back in. Good stuff. Overall, a close victory on Hard setting, grassy plain battlefield. I like!

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Originally Posted by OMGLAZERS

What was their commander's star rating, and their experience?

I mean, these are some elite mofos with a strong commander, I can see them fighting to the death.

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None and none. It was a custom battle little experiment to make sure HA hadn't been nerfed.

On a related note Doug, I've noticed that unit cohesion seems to have improved by a good margin. I haven't had any instances yet where my HAs (or any other cav for that matter) have decided to do the "every man for himself!" and scatter to the nine winds, instead of keeping a good formation. They still do the stupid scatter thing when chasing down routers, but during normal use they seem to work better. Still needs work, but we're definitely showing some progress.

Never thought I'd say this, but it sounds like I may end up modding morale down in M2TW. One thing I've always like about TW was the importance of morale. Units not fighting to the last man was one thing that made it stand out from other "strategy" games. :shrug:

I should say clearly that this thread's title -- unfortunately -- does not refer to the problems with billmen and so forth. I haven't tried them and assume they are still waiting for the second patch for a fix. My apologies to anyone who was misled.

@Whacker. Agreed. Better, but no perfect. Not necessarily all bad, though. I had one brave little enemy guy in my test who ran farther than the others. The little jerk killed two Mamaluks while the shooting was still going on. He was the first to die when melee started: Made sure of that.

On a related note, knights are definitely not paralyzed by missile fire any more. Oh boy, are they not paralyzed. I have the javelinmen and spear unit corpses to prove it.

@econ21

I presume that's based on your own experience, not my little trifling check. There weren't a whole lot of morale crippling effects in my one-on-one comparison.

Well, in the couple VH strategy map battles I had today, AI routed alright after being surrounded and charged from the rear/flanks.

On another note, unit cohesion seems to be "kind of fixed", I still encountered it when I ordered a unit of spear militia to charge a group of mailed knights that had engaged my general. Only the first row engaged, while the rest stayed behind and slowly crawled towards the combat. Infantry charge was ok in other 6 quick battles I had.

The infantry charge was never broke in my opinion, nor their morale.

Errm... ???

Well have a look at this thread I posted some screenshots of a battle I had this evening in campaign post patch:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74313

What do you think happened there ?
I'm not going to tell you you'll have to guess ;)

Also I killed a unit of Armored Sargents again and again wiht 1 unit of Turkish Horse Archers, doing the same as I always did, since MTW. Charge in... and out.. repeat.. repeat. They got killed but they did more damage than before.

I also did some tests with Timid eles vs JM (Jani Muskets) 1 vs 1. JM won 7 times out of ten, with terrain advantage. 2 vs 1, JM won every single time. The reform bug, err that I would'nt say is fixed, it's better but not fixed. Anyway that's another topic.

Sinan, sometimes I wonder if your chair at the computer is a saddle.

I'm talking about square dancin' and you're showing us pictures of ballet.

Seriously, I'd already seen your detailed instructions from that thread and was looking forward to giving them a try tonight. You really are willing to share anything.

My guess is that those poor devils went out of their minds and routed like madmen just before they all died.

'Lest you think I'm an idiot, I would never have done what I described in a real game. For starters, there would have been some crossfire and other tactics. For another, I'd have some melee cavalry on hand. :wink:

My only point is that infantry are going to be a little tougher to scare now. Frankly, that's a very good thing.

HAHA !

LOL ! Yeah in those screens if you look closely you'll see that they are being surrounded and the missile fire is shortly going to be coming from all sides (though that's harder to see in those shots). You have to look at the horizons, thin triangular banners are Turkish. The Sipahi have an armor upgrade and are experience 5-7, the Turcomen flanking from left and right are all Armor +2 and Experience +9. Kapikulu and the General are also flanking from left and right to take up charge positons at the rear. The Sipahi are focusing the enemy's missile fire on themselves while the rest of the army is flanking from both sides. Hence they are going as close as they can, in loose formation and running parallel to the enemy's missile shooting down what they can. Have you seen Dances with Wolves ? If you have this move is what Kevin Costner does in the beginning of the film, the run across the Confederate line, except the Sipahi are obviously shooting back.

The enemy did rout even before being bumped, but some of the cav did bump here and there. It's awesome though, when you're that close and the cav is literally shooting people in the face. It's amazing.

I've added an edit in that thread btw just to be sure nobody gets hurt trying this. Crossbows hurt and against those you have to particularly sharp.

Ok. Just tried custom battle and yeah it seems the morale is higher, and spears can kill more but are still quite... umm... weak tbh IMO. In my campaign battles ofc there were the dread modifiers and experience modifiers, which I should have taken into account ofc.

They are indeed tougher.

I'd like some spears to be a little bit tougher still, you can still charge Armored Sargents head on. With heavy cavalry you can destroy them in one properly executed frontal charge, they won't recover. They will now kill more of your cav but they still probably won't recover. I have'nt tried with heavy cavalry yet. The lesser spears like Town Militia, Saracen Militia, are doomed. I think the problem is the stupid schiltron formation, if the charge is coming head on why not point all the spears in the direction of the charge ?

I can confirm Dough-Thompsons findings, I had often as not battles (HRE campaign, M/M, Large units) with mercenary spearmen who literally fought to the last man. It seems that, as long as they don´t get flanked or shot at, losses they suffer in melee (against Italian Spears in this particular case) don´t effect their morale that much, provided they kill about the same amount of enemies.

I´ll have to do some 1-on-1 custom battle testing, though, since in campaign battles there are other factors influencing the outcome.

Chevron count very much influences morale.
If you did a test with units with 5 or more chevrons, don't be surprised if they fight to the last man, especially when its a 1v1 because there are no other factors which drag their morale down (routing friends, enemy at flank/rear, outnumbered)

Anybody else noticed that your corssbowman and musketeers are becaming useless? the bloody infantry just kept on charging in hordes... NOT EVEN STOPPING FOR THEIR OWN ARCHERS/MUSKETEERS/ even through you have at least half a dozen of musketeers mowing the crap out of them... they kept on coming, now my genese crossbowman would have less than 3 volleys at the main group of infantry before melee, what is that gonna do?

*Never surrender!*
http://cs.joensuu.fi/~ppakar/seka/mtw2_003.jpg

Seriously they can take way too much beating without routing.

While I agree that this is somewhat of a problem, I'd also point out that sometimes this happens because the enemy unit tries to rout and is surrounded. If unable to flee the area, a rout typically becomes "fight to the death" for the trapped unit... and in that situation, they will NEVER try to run, having realized it is impossible. IIRC, it's symbolized by the unit flag flashing red.

it doesnt surprise me. they will fight to death against a heavy cav charge too.

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Originally Posted by Foz

IIRC, it's symbolized by the unit flag flashing red.

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Yes, that means they are in "fight to death" mode. And they get quite stubborn too when they get there, as though maybe a morale boost was given once they hit that stage. Its not at all uncommon to see enemy AI units do this in the town square when defending a city since they really have no where else to go.

*edit*

BTW, thanks for your shield bug fix EXE Foz, been playing around with that all day today and it really makes a difference with the shielded infantry, plus I didn't have to edit my currently modded EDU file to apply them ;)

You're quite welcome, and I'm glad you like it Irish. I figured lots of people would have modified EDUs and thus get a lot of mileage from the patcher. Guess I was right :smile:

I think the fight to the death mode in city sieges is a bit overkill. Once the wall is breached, the enemy army in the city has the numerical superiority, the general and all high discipline units are dead? We should see militia and peasant units surrendering if the invader is the same religion. I think the fight to the death thing should mostly be if the invader is a different faith and thus more likely to exterminate the town.

Also it seems like, in cases where a settlement is besieged and there aren't any generals, knightly or elite units in it... just peasants and militia types... AND they are massively outnumbered, the defenders should try to negotiate the city's surrender. This wouldn't happen all the time, but it makes a lot of sense. And it would be a nice replacement for autocalc attacks that kill 300 defenders and only 4 attackers. Such a surrender should also not invoke papal wrath as an extra act of war either. There would need to be diplomatic options including agreements not to sack or exterminate the city. (Granted, you still COULD, but the reputation and pope meter hits would be astronomical doing so in violation of the agreement.)

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Originally Posted by FactionHeir

Chevron count very much influences morale.
If you did a test with units with 5 or more chevrons, don't be surprised if they fight to the last man, especially when its a 1v1 because there are no other factors which drag their morale down (routing friends, enemy at flank/rear, outnumbered)

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They had zero experience, they just fought in the regular battle line.
Outflanking, missile fire, the death of the general and being outnumbered seems to have a very big impact on morale, while losses sustained in an equal melee don´t seem to have much impact.

In RTW at least a unit broke when it had lost a lot of men even in an equal 1-vs-1 battle instead of slugging it out to the last man.