*** Modding breakthrough *** Making battles more climatic!

[Duke John]

Ok, ok. Perhaps a bit over the top, but that is just my enthusiastic self.

I have found a way to make battles more climatic and more rare by removing the ability to move non-familiy members on the strategic map. So battles can only be initiated by familiy members and losing the battle might mean losing a named character. Since you can run out of them you will use them more thoughtfully.

Anyway, I am really interested if Single Players are interested in this discovery since if so, modders might incorporate it into their mods. Here's the full thread with more details.

Please let me hear what you think!

Cheers,
Duke John

[Daevyll]

Does this also apply to the AI?

If so, this might prove a winner by forcing the AI to clump its units together in fewer armies.

[Duke John]

Yes this also counts for the AI. All the factions only have a few family members and thus only a few armies that they can move around. Defeating those armies means defeat for a faction.

But it has to be tested wether the AI actually builds up decent armies before attacking. There are reports in the original game of family members wandering around on their own. Hopefully CA will fix this in the patch and then this discovery might be a winner indeed.

Another bonus is that since captains cannot move cities will build up large garrisons which will make quite hard to conquer one. Of course this also needs to be tested...

[Templar Knight]

oh man this sounds really good

[Kyoujin]

I don't think that will work. Too easy to exploit in my opinion.

For example... Say random_barbarian_sneakybastard amasses a 20-stack army at a weak point along my border. Let's also say that the AI decides to actually use that army while I'm caught with my pants around my ankles instead of just sitting there like a twit, as per usual. In this scenario I should lose a province or two while gathering an army to deal with the unwashed pigdogs. And rightly so for leaving my border undefended! However, with the modification detailed in the post you linked, all I'd have to do is assassinate the family putz leading the swine...and 3000 barbarians get stuck in the snow overlooking my nice, warm, undefended city...chock full of food, plunder and hairy greek women...unable to command their own feet without the aid of a general.

I like the concept, but I really don't think it will work. Now if you can figure out a way to give a leader-less army the option to retreat to the nearest friendly city instead of just standing about... Or, if they're within sight of a poorly defended city they could go a-maraudin'.

[HicRic]

It sounds like a good idea, but much better if the patch fixes some things. If the AI continues to make family members wander alone and if the 'suicidal daimyo' bug persists the AI will be running out of family members very quickly indeed, as family-led armies will be the only ones that can move.

This could led to a very nice and interesting game, if these issues are fixed in the patch. Great idea!

[Kyoujin]

Clearly, I am in need of an edit button...

EDIT: +But only the first option is required to make your idea doable.

[Duke John]

However, with the modification detailed in the post you linked, all I'd have to do is assassinate the family putz leading the swine

Then we can remove Assassins. And if not, you are talking about an exploit. If a player decides to use a mod that uses this concept then why would he destroy that concept by "cheating"?

Note that this is not necessarily meant to be the ultimate solution. It does make battles more climatic and it does make the game considerably different from what it is now, which might be fun for a change.

But I realize that this concept can only work properly if there are no obvious flaws that makes it apparent that it modded that way. Personally I couldn't care less and I would just disband entire field armies that do not have family members and I would clean up leaderless AI armies as target practice.

[zhuge]

I have found a way to make battles more climatic and more rare by removing the ability to move non-familiy members on the strategic map.

Might be a good idea. I don't mind the "battles can only be initiated by generals" part as I used the same restriction in my Greek and Julii campaigns and it didn't hinder much. However not allowing movement for captains will hamper troop reinforcements to quite a large degree. Of course that will apply to both sides, so I expect expansion to slow down quite a bit, which is not a bad thing.
In the end, I strongly feel that much hinges on how the AI will perform under the new conditions. For a human player, I suppose most would press on the attack on a new province if there were enough troops. Otherwise, waiting for reinforcements, say to be shuttled by another general or waiting for new troops to be trained in that region, would probably be the next best choices. If the AI does much the same, then it should work out fine. However, if the AI fails to reinforce the main force because of the fact that captains can no longer travel alone, resulting in big stacks hording up in towns, with nobody picking them up, then the idea wouldn't work too well.

On a more unrelated note, I also believe it is a known issue that the AI does not pursue a withdrawing army and engage it in a second fight where it would not be able to withdraw again (unless the second fight is initiated by a completely different stack). Since the AI has the limitation of not being able to conduct a second battle with the same stack, could it be modded somehow that only the attacker can withdraw (say through further refinements to the movement modifications suggested by yourself). That way perhaps we would see battles between AI factions and also against the player end more conclusively, which would probably facilitate the build up of an uber faction late in the game, which was not uncommon in M:TW but appears to be almost non-existent in R:TW.

[drone]

How does this mod affect rebels? Does this mod eliminate the need to keep a few decent troops (plus a family member!) in the backfield?

[Oaty]

Wow!!!! sounds great!!!!!

1 question. Human and A.I. battles have a pretty straight up result. But A.I vs A.I. a general could die while most of his troops live. So if they live are they autodisbanded or are they stuck there until a general comes and picks them up?

[Oaty]

How does this mod affect rebels? Does this mod eliminate the need to keep a few decent troops (plus a family member!) in the backfield?

No idea but good point. My guess is the rebels that show up with a general can move.

As far as non general ones, they'll either not show up or be stuck and ca'nt move

[LordKhaine]

I don't wish to sound negative. But I can't see this idea working. It would make the game highly frustating. And the chances are the AI simply wouldn't know how to cope with it. I can think of so many problems and drawbacks, and I see little gain. Already there is a drawback for not having a family general, so the incentive for using a family member as a general is already there. All this would do is slow reinforcements, and force you to micromanage all the reinforcements with a spare general. And many people think there's more than enough micromanagement in the game as it is.

And what if a family member dies of old age in the middle of an enemy province? You have a helpless stack of men that you can't move or even disband. And the idea of removing assassins simply to make this idea feasable is madness. So basically you get a ton of huge gameplay flaws introduced to "fix" something that isn't even broken. Right now any decent army will be lead by a family member anyway, unless it's the AI. And fixing the AI is a game patch issue, not something to "fix" by changing a gameplay element so radically

[Mikemyers64]

actually the rebels just about never move unless a town rebels and some of the units move out of the city

[Razor1952]

Certainly a breakthrough but it would be better IMHO if the patch forced the ai to make decent armies (not multiple easily defeated ones) led by captains. I have no problem facing/having armies lead by captains as long as they as strong.

Also how does promotion to general work then?, I guess that would be out.

One of the interesting things is to get as many heroic victories as possible to give better chance of promotion to general, this would seem to cut off that strategy, but other incentives for heroic victory may be able to be implemented.( eg. bonus experience level to troops involved)

If captain led rebels are stuck then unless they are blocking trade they can be ignored..

[Herakleitos]

actually the rebels just about never move unless a town rebels and some of the units move out of the city

That's a shame IMO; in my recent campaign I had a reasonable sized rebel army led by a general just standing outside my town which was garrisoned by one unit of peasants. Instead of worrying I could let him be while I gathered a small army to defeat him. I would think that when you rebel you would want to achieve something like take over the province...