Combat in the Med II engine

[Captain Jazzy]

Hello. Now im sure that EB II is going to be mind blowingly amazing but I have one small worry....
Combat in Medieval II is pretty sluggish... also the formations seemed to be very spaced. This lead to a couple of men at the fronts of the units engaging in realy slow and clumsy combat while the rest of the unit backed off and occasionaly took their places when they died. Im aware that its not realistic to have crazy RTW like slaughter but if the combat is like this in EB II with higher defence values combat could go on forever. So essentially my question is what will the combat be like in EB II will it retain more of a RTW feal or become slower and more like Med II?
Anyway thanks for reading.

[Julianus]

I hope the soldiers would die a little slower while rout a little sooner than in EB1.

[WinsingtonIII]

EB1 combat is already slow paced compared to RTW or even M2TW vanilla, so I'm guessing it will be about the same speed as it is now, although who knows really.

I am guessing that units will move and certainly turn slower. It's crazy how RTW cavalry can turn on a dime.

[vartan]

There are two things I'd like to see:

1) If shock cavalry try to retreat after a charge they just committed to, they should suffer many casualties as they turn and attempt to escape.

2) Units should have more men in their companies before they rout. At least on average, that is. I can't help but be amazed when I see a unit lose 90 percent or more of its men before it routs.

[MisterFred]

That's all well and good for historical realism. But for campaign and multiplayer fun, its usually better if a unit sticks in for a little while before routing. I think where EB I had it is about right. Although I do think some of EBI's elite units die a little easy.

[Julianus]

Forgot to say, one feature I always want is incrasing the time needed when a unit is "reforming". It has always been a most dangerous move to change your formation on the battle field such as increasing front width when enemy is near because of the confusion it might result in. However in EB1, the soldiers always manage to get into new position in a few seconds...Not sure if it's possible though.

[Cute Wolf]

medieval 2 balancing system = less actual damage dealed, more time for artistic coreographic combat, and non moddable lethality (stuck to their default values, no matter how u tweak)

But on the bright side, we will see less cavalrymen using their poking stick in melee, unless they are delibrately ordered to do that...

[antisocialmunky]

Unit cohesion is moddable and allows for some interesting side effects like units not being able to withdraw from melee and such if it is really low(really annoying for command and control but may be a good bonus on undisciplined troops).

I hope they figured out how to implement hoplite pushing shieldwalls. :-D

[seienchin]

I love medievials combat system!! Although I hoped the cavallery dies like flies in melee system together with the delayed unit controlls got me insane at first, when my knights were slaughtered by peasants.
Still it is quite realistic that units do not react imediatly and that cavallery loses some of its charging power everytime it charges.
Prevents EB1 Super Heavy cavallery over kills.

[Apázlinemjó]

I love medievials combat system!! Although I hoped the cavallery dies like flies in melee system together with the delayed unit controlls got me insane at first, when my knights were slaughtered by peasants.
Still it is quite realistic that units do not react imediatly and that cavallery loses some of its charging power everytime it charges.
Prevents EB1 Super Heavy cavallery over kills.

The cavalry loses charging power in EB 1 too, just compare an exhausted cataphract to a fresh one.

[Cambyses]

The thing were a couple of soldiers at the the front engage and the rest stand around is mostly a problem when fighting in the town centre, or trying to run past each other elsewhere Ive not seen that happen often when units engage cleanly on an open battlefield. And I dont get what people are saying about weaker cavalry in M2TW, a proper charge can still anihilate most infantry, even if they are prepared and from the front.

[Julianus]

I understand that if an infantry unit do rout when facing a cavalry charge, they should rout before the impact. Otherwise if they stay steady then it's the cavalry who will be in real trouble if they don't put on the brakes. So i always wonder if the "charge into an infantry unit -- if they don't rout then disengage and reform -- charge again until they rout" practice really happened in history.

[Captain Jazzy]

I just dont want to see my Hellcats owned by freed slaves =(

[antisocialmunky]

The cavalry loses charging power in EB 1 too, just compare an exhausted cataphract to a fresh one.

It doens't make much of a difference if the infantry is also exhausted.

[Apázlinemjó]

If someone barely can hold a shield, because he is so tired, why do you expect him to withstand a cataphract charge?

[antisocialmunky]

If someone barely can hold a shield, because he is so tired, why do you expect him to withstand a cataphract charge?

By tapping into SECRET HIDDEN POWER that they only get when they see their friends get beat up and or killed? Haven't you watched DBZ?

[Apázlinemjó]

By tapping into SECRET HIDDEN POWER that they only get when they see their friends get beat up and or killed? Haven't you watched DBZ?

I forgot it, sorry. :( We need moar anime-ish units! :D

[Julianus]

If someone barely can hold a shield, because he is so tired, why do you expect him to withstand a cataphract charge?

In this case he will almost inevitably flee as soon as he catches the mere sight of the enemy's kataphractoi...
What I question is the usual practice in EB that you can ultimately rout a full-strength, fresh, and high-spirited infantry unit by repeatedly charging INTO their ranks and then disengaging. Because I believe an unsuccessful charge, i.e. one withstood by the opposite side, should does more harm to the charging cavalry then to the infantry being charged, and disengaging in this case should be a most difficult task.

[vartan]

In this case he will almost inevitably flee as soon as he catches the mere sight of the enemy's kataphractoi...
What I question is the usual practice in EB that you can ultimately rout a full-strength, fresh, and high-spirited infantry unit by repeatedly charging INTO their ranks and then disengaging. Because I believe an unsuccessful charge, i.e. one withstood by the opposite side, should does more harm to the charging cavalry then to the infantry being charged, and disengaging in this case should be a most difficult task.

I've heard that disengaging in M2TW causes vast casualties. I hope this is the case. It would mean you'd only use cav at the right moment. Also, in EB, as it is, you have charge-reflection phenomena, so you do sometimes lose half your regiment of cav when you charge into rear of a unit. Strange stuff.

[Cute Wolf]

medieval 2 system indeed shown great realistic behaviour in cavalry warfare, but the bad side was just one, they kill (in supposedly prolonged melee, not chargin time) and got killed too quickly

[vartan]

medieval 2 system indeed shown great realistic behaviour in cavalry warfare, but the bad side was just one, they kill (in supposedly prolonged melee, not chargin time) and got killed too quickly

That's perfect!

[Apázlinemjó]

In this case he will almost inevitably flee as soon as he catches the mere sight of the enemy's kataphractoi...
What I question is the usual practice in EB that you can ultimately rout a full-strength, fresh, and high-spirited infantry unit by repeatedly charging INTO their ranks and then disengaging. Because I believe an unsuccessful charge, i.e. one withstood by the opposite side, should does more harm to the charging cavalry then to the infantry being charged, and disengaging in this case should be a most difficult task.

In that case answer the exploit with exploit, charge toward the cavalry with your infantry, you will lose less men and make more damage against the cavalry.

[Cambyses]

Unless the EB team are able to make major changes, Im afraid it really isnt perfect. Mostly because a head on cavalry charge in every M2TW mod Ive ever played can wipe out 50% of any infantry unit it connects with in 3-5 seconds. Its true cavalry left in melee do die quickly, and charge/withdraw is very costly in terms of numbers. So a new tactic of hitting any unit with two or three units of cavalry at once and, literally, totally annihiliating them is the way forward. Cavalry and artillery rule the battlefield in M2TW.

RTW is much better in that respect. Of course there are also a great many things that M2TW does better than RTW - but personally I would not put "realism of cavalry" on that list.

[bobbin]

This is actually easily rectified via statting, its just that most mods (at least those I've played) seem to like stronger charges.

[Rolling Thunder]

One thing the Medieval II engine does well is model cavalry behaviour. Getting a charge is difficult, they're more powerful in melee and when they do hit home, it's like being smashed with a sledgehammer. Oh, and trying to countercharge with infantry gets you killed. So pretty damn realistic there - a man with a 12 foot lance is going to deliver a hell of a lot of damage to any infantry formation before they can hope to strike back.
The 'Realism' mod for Medievall II, Stainless Steel Real Recruitment/Real Combat, actually buffed a lot of the charge values for the knights and other units and did a lot of splendid work in general.

Pikes in vanilla ME:2 suck, but with proper modding they work great.
However, part of this modding requires removing the secondary weapon, as in Medieval II the tendency for units to switch to secondary's is far too great for them to be useful in a melee. However, this actually makes them less rigid as you don't have to obssessively maintain the phalanx formation.

[Rahwana]

One thing the Medieval II engine does well is model cavalry behaviour. Getting a charge is difficult, they're more powerful in melee and when they do hit home, it's like being smashed with a sledgehammer. Oh, and trying to countercharge with infantry gets you killed. So pretty damn realistic there - a man with a 12 foot lance is going to deliver a hell of a lot of damage to any infantry formation before they can hope to strike back.
The 'Realism' mod for Medievall II, Stainless Steel Real Recruitment/Real Combat, actually buffed a lot of the charge values for the knights and other units and did a lot of splendid work in general.

Pikes in vanilla ME:2 suck, but with proper modding they work great.
However, part of this modding requires removing the secondary weapon, as in Medieval II the tendency for units to switch to secondary's is far too great for them to be useful in a melee. However, this actually makes them less rigid as you don't have to obssessively maintain the phalanx formation.

well, it's true that pike units somewhat love to drop their pike in battle ;clown:
but this will solve age old hardcoded bug in EB with pike turning 180 degree, at least partially since the pikemen are now baing much much much more vulnerable.

and yes, this could be somewhat compensated by get really high attack values for pikes, so they kill more before finally dropped

[Ichon]

Actually pike with low stats are pretty effective vs most units in MTW2 due to the pathfinding and coherent units. IE- longer reach mean pike usually get at least 2x attack vs opposing unit and also if the opposing unit is dense/high cohernent it takes long time to even reach into range where they can hit pikes. As well MTW2 has better modeling of armor/shields. IE- heavy armored cavalry with shield is pretty tough for most infantry without really high attack or bonus vs cavalry to take except thru mass numbers but soon as cavalry turns to disengage they become very vulnerable for a few seconds. Cavalry in RTW move so fast disengage almost instant.

Charge bonus works pretty well depending on stat as well. IE- many mods put charge shock bonus of 12 and higher which means one unit of 50 cavalry can kill 150 infantry unit in a few seconds. Mod that stat down to 6-8 and it is much better especially for the timeframe of EB when heavy cavalry charges weren't quite on the devastating level of armored knight with couched lance of medieval times. Though still devastating in the right situation head on charges into set infantry formations should probably only be possible for a very few elite cavalries without large losses. Hopefully the generals bodyguard units are more varied in EB and someway to make them smaller without adversely affecting AI generals killing themselves even more quickly.

Even more important though might be model the difference between speed of light and heavy infantry and cavalries... never seen a MTW2 mod yet where heavy cavalry can't eventually catch light cavalry on the map corners because the difference in speed is so small.

[Cyclops]

I understand that if an infantry unit do rout when facing a cavalry charge, they should rout before the impact. Otherwise if they stay steady then it's the cavalry who will be in real trouble if they don't put on the brakes. So i always wonder if the "charge into an infantry unit -- if they don't rout then disengage and reform -- charge again until they rout" practice really happened in history.

This is an interesting point, especially the bit about inf routing before impact. I am no expert, my knowledge is purely academic and limited at that. My impression from a few texts eg Face of Battle is units often fell back before contact when charged, refused to charge when ordered etc. so generalship was something like herding cats.

I recall having this problem with units in MTW (the old one) especially with 0 1 or 2 star commanders. If morale was a lot lower then we'd see charges brealk off sooner and defenders rout more often.

This makes for less impressive battles (hmmm the disorganised barbarians ran away again), or at least the impressive ones are less common. Maybe its a touch of historical realism? Real bloodbaths only happening when there are two well-led well-motivated forces, or there's no escape for one side?

In game terms I guess it would favour skirmishers and missile troops over heavies in that if both sides are unwilling to engage then shock loses value.

I suppose it might force players to position generals and "eagle" units more carefully and time attacks more exactly.

I find it frustrating when a flanking unit drops its bundle and flees to the rear but I guess it did happen and in fact it might have happened a lot.

Once again the game mechanics might not handle this so well, with the distortion of the town square and battlefield map edge meaning a rout has massively different values for different situations.

Is there a point in nerfing morale (and maybe speeding morale recovery? if possible?) to model troop trepidation?

[Ichon]

Routing before contact would make many battles almost unplayable or that only elite units would be used by human players since a handful of elite units could wipe up a full stack of low morale/prone to rout AI units. It is an interesting idea for future TW game but in practice for MTW2 probably quite boring. In all TW games I would prefer having units worth much more in manpower terms... so even a routing unit if it makes it alive off the battlefield could form the core of a new unit or contribute some manpower. RTW came closest with units subtracting from the population of the region formed out of but that put the AI at a rather large disadvantage. MTW2 negated unit creation minus to population but that along with minimal bonus due to XP resulted in individual units becoming rather interchangeable. Hopefully in the future something like a max cap per type of unit per region could be done... so losing a unit completely means the manpower pool takes some time to replenish before it is available again. Even better is if that is offset by the ability to recruit more manpower with a tax income/unrest penalty. Various RR/RC submods for some of the most popular MTW2 mods move in this direction but limited by the engine CA built. Ideally the differences between more civilized culture and less civilized could be modeled that way as well. More civilized cultures with higher populations could support more units if willing to tax lower and bear more unrest (partially countered by law/public order structures) while less civlized cultures have a more fragile economy which can support high number of units only for a set time before income penalty is leading the state to go bankrupt... however more men under arms could conversaely lead to higher public order (young trouble makers fighting far away) and allow higher taxes... though perhaps some units being only recruitable for a set duration- 5 seasons or something. Anyway, most of that is probably for another game.

Most battles had blood baths occurring with the rout so that part is historical. Units fighting to the death was more rare but happened in very militatistic cultures and with some elite units even in less militaristic cultures.

Using the current MTW2 system the best results could be not decreasing morale overall but increasing the rate fatigue sets in and also the rate units recover from being tired. With tired and exhausted units much more likely to rout it would encourage rotating units or at least keeping a reserve but that tired units wouldn't be finished for the entire battle. Just need to rest a bit as this would especially help AI when on higher difficulties it often would have routing units rally which might have a chance to rest before getting into battle again. Especially if fatigue rates made a bigger difference in unit speed. I haven't seen very many mods change unit speed noticeably with fatigue and not sure if that is due to narrow band of difference possible to mod or just never been done. The most annoying thing in battles for me besides the AI charging its general into the midst of my best spear unit for a glorious death is when exhausted units sprint away at the same speed as fresh units chasing them.

[fightermedic]

Using the current MTW2 system the best results could be not decreasing morale overall but increasing the rate fatigue sets in and also the rate units recover from being tired. With tired and exhausted units much more likely to rout it would encourage rotating units or at least keeping a reserve but that tired units wouldn't be finished for the entire battle. Just need to rest a bit as this would especially help AI when on higher difficulties it often would have routing units rally which might have a chance to rest before getting into battle again. Especially if fatigue rates made a bigger difference in unit speed. I haven't seen very many mods change unit speed noticeably with fatigue and not sure if that is due to narrow band of difference possible to mod or just never been done. The most annoying thing in battles for me besides the AI charging its general into the midst of my best spear unit for a glorious death is when exhausted units sprint away at the same speed as fresh units chasing them.

i absolutley agree with the fatigue part
but i have that certain fear that this is hardcoded

on a side note i think that the recovery ratio of wounded after battle should be greatly increased
maybe by granting every general a trait that does so